3 wins in 4 games is pretty good form for a team that took until January to win it's first game of a league season. Even though we did our scripted 'control a game but then concede and begin to make our opposition look like prime Barcelona with about ten minutes to go but just about hang on for a win we just about deserved but made hard work of it' we did get a convincing win against Plymouth to book our place in the 5th round of the FA Cup. For 75 minutes, Plymouth were on the ropes and the score could easily have been more than 2-0 if our finishing could have been just a little bit better. But we looked comfortable! Surely we can't throw this one away? We look really good! What do you mean Plymouth have scored? It was easily avoidable and shouldn't really have got anywhere near our goal before our keeper let it go straight through him? Oh dear, and look, now here they come. They're battering us and it looks like we're back in League One under Adkins again. Every ball in our box leads to a very, VERY clenched bum and every loose ball anywhere near our box is met with a rise in anxiety. But we got away with it, and we march on to our match with Bristol City. anyway, enough gabbling and probably repeating myself, let's take a look at the match as a whole.
Not many changes for United from the weekend's loss to Spurs with the only changes being in our frontline with Billy Sharp and Rhian Brewster leading the line in lieu of McGoldrick and Burke. Plymouth on the other hand travelled very far north (there's about 175 miles between Home Park and Bramall Lane) and named a pretty strong line up with their hotshot striker Luke Jephcott leading the line alongside Luke Hardie with loanees Tyrese Fornah and Jerome Opoku bolstering the midfield and defence respectively. United started very well and almost got in within the opening minutes of the game but Billy Sharp's effort would have been ruled out for offside if it did go into the net. United continued to press and Billy was at it again shortly after with a snapshot being turned away by Opoku for a corner. The game was almost exclusively being played in Plymouth's half of the pitch at this point and it would be the turn of Brewster to have an opportunity on goal with his first effort being claimed by Cooper in the Plymouth goal after our record signing arrowed a vicious shot from just outside the box. Shortly after, Plymouth arguably had the best opportunity of the match so far with some lovely play down our right hand side eventually being worked to Camara, who was unmarked just outside our six yard box, with the Plymouth man somehow sending his effort over the bar when it looked easier to score. United responded well though and minutes later United were back up the other end with good play down our left hand side eventually seeing John Lundstram hitting a rasping drive that narrowly went wide of the left hand post of the Bramall Lane end goal. United had another gilt edged chance of our own not long after this with another cross working it's way to Brewster, who's effort skewed wide of the post when it once again looked easier to score than miss. Would United rue these missed opportunities? Not yet because on the cusp of half time we got the opener with more good play eventually allowing Billy Sharp freedom to loft a ball to the right post with Basham arriving at the back stick to head home with aplomb to give us a deserved lead. Not long after, the half time whistle blew and the 1-0 scoreline didn't fully portray United's dominance in the half with the gulf between Premier League (yes, we're technically still a Premier League team) and League 1 on show. It looked like United had the tie all wrapped up literally a minute into the second half with good pressing from United eventually seeing Oli Norwood play a lovely ball into the feet of Billy Sharp who took the ball around the keeper and netted his first goal from open play this season which gave United a seemingly commanding 2-0 lead. United continued to look for a third and nearly had it with Brewster again going close with a volley that if it was either side of Cooper, would have surely opened Brewster's account for the club and given us a 3-0 lead. But it didn't, and we continued. Plymouth made the game interesting with 15 minutes to go with some very poor defending from Basham letting Plymouth get into our box with the ball eventually falling to that man Camara who shot straight at Ramsdale and the ball somehow squeezed past our no. 1 to give Plymouth a shout in the tie. And shout they did with the next 15 minutes leading to that familiar sinking feeling worming it's way into may stomach. 'Surely we won't throw this away?' Looking back on it, Plymouth didn't really have any golden opportunities during this period of the game but bloody hell it felt like they were peppering our goal every two minutes when watching it live. But we did it, we hung on and we booked our ticket in the 5th round of the cup with the reward of another home tie and another tie against lower league opposition with Bristol City making their way to the Lane in two weeks. So, despite the attempt at a capitulation within those last 15 minutes, I think this was a fairly good performance by United on the whole. We played some lovely football at times and for the first 30-40 minutes of the game, play was almost exclusively taking part within Plymouth's half of the pitch. It was reminiscent of our first season in League One under Wilder and our promotion season to the Premier League. We had the majority of the ball and were making opportunities that really should have been dispatched. It wouldn't have been a shock if we went into half time being three or four up. But unfortunately, an inability to finish off good chances and a seeming obsession with walking the ball into the net means we usually never have the pleasure of having commanding leads in a game and there's always that worry that once we concede one goal, especially this season, we can capitulate which we did try to do in this game. But we won. And in the current climate, any win's a good win and as I mentioned at the top of this piece, we've now won three of our last four games which is pretty good! Anyway, we now look forward to a visit to Old Trafford without John Egan. I hope Jags has started his warm up exercises now. Until next time, UTB.
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Well, at least we got two wins before we resorted to becoming god awful again. Yes, Tottenham on paper do have a stronger team than us and with the way things have gone this season it would make sense to think Spurs would secure a comfortable win. But it's the hope that kills you and I, as well as other United fans, hoped that after back to back wins and our maiden win in the Premier League we might be able to sneak something from this game not even necessarily a win, even a draw would have been nice, before we travel to City and Man United. But we couldn't. Instead, we proceeded to gift Tottenham two goals and allowed them to easily set up their third that was an astoundingly good finish but should never have been allowed to happen. We actually scored a goal as well but that doesn't really mean anything at this point, the teams that have a worse goal difference than us either have nine more points than us or won this weekend. I don't really want to spend too much time on this game so let's get on with it.
After our two wins on Saturday and Tuesday, one change was made for United's starting XI. Enda Stevens returned to the line up after Ben Osborn suffered and injury into the build up to the match. Spurs continued to leave Gareth Bale on the bench, much to the chagrin of the Sky Sports presenters who appeared to forget that Harry Kane and Heung Min Son had contributed forty goals to Spurs this season. Son and Kane were joined up top by Bergwijn with Eric Dier returning to the Spurs line up. Tottenham started the match on the front foot and after four minutes took the lead through Serge Aurier with the Ivorian international outjumping Bogle to head home and remind United fans that even though we've won a game, we're still a very, very bad team. United began to come into the game a little bit after this with Burke and Bogle having efforts on goal although they never really looked like troubling Lloris in the Spurs goal. But then it was 2-0 with some atrocious communication between Bogle and Norwood seeing a square ball from the ex-Derby man mis controlled by Norwood which allowed Harry Kane to dance through some feeble United challenges and slam home past Ramsdale from about 30 yards to seemingly finish the contest before half time just like when we played Palace. But wait! After a good start to the second half United pulled a goal back! David McGoldrick manged to bag his fifth league goal of the season with a deft header that reduced the deficit to 2-1. Would United be able to capitalise on Tottenham's frailty when defending leads? No. They almost scored immediately after we scored (bringing flashbacks to simpler times) and then we once again shot ourselves in the football with another square ball, this time from Ampadu seeing Norwood this time simply neglect to control the ball and let the ball run through to a Tottenham player who lofted in a hopeful looking ball towards Ndombele with the record signing showing why Spurs paid all that money for him with a brilliant outside of the boot lob that looped over Ramsdale, hit the post, and nestled in the net for 3-1 and game over. Other things happened in this game but I just don't want to talk about it because I'd just be repeating what I've written about 16 times this season and I just can't be bothered because neither can United. We couldn't even go a full week without losing. Just when it looked like we'd turned a corner we remember that we're crap this season and put in a very, very poor performance. Yes we were playing Tottenham but that doesn't mean we should let them walk all over us. But then you remember that we appear to have lost all ability to fight teams like we did last season and, despite spending £50 million+ in the summer, 'we just can't compete against teams like this'. We've got Plymouth at the weekend, hopefully we'll be able to win that but god knows if we can. I'll see you next time. UTB. There's an old saying that I'm sure you've probably heard before, I won't repeat it here but if I say it involves buses and the amount of buses that come to a bus stop at a certain time then I'm pretty sure at least a good majority of the people who read this know what I'm talking about and we can all have a collective Captain America 'I understand that reference' moment and all have a slight laugh and then continue to get on with our lives. But anyway, after just over six months without a league win, Sheffield United managed to follow up on the weekend's victory over Bristol Rovers with another win this time against Steve Bruce's Newcastle United (that doesn't have the same ring to it as Frank Lampard's Derby County) in very impressive fashion. Despite the Geordie's going down to 10 men thanks to a rush of blood to the head of everyone's favourite footballer Ryan Fraser, United were more than value for money in this 1-0 win and it easily could have been more. Let's start the review!
United made one change to the weekend's team that beat Rovers with Lys Mousset dropping to the bench in favour of Oli Burke with the Scotsman looking to build on his first goal for the club at the weekend. Newcastle were still without crucial squad members in Jamaal Lascelles and Allan Saint-Maximin with Callum Wilson tasked with leading the line. United started the game with the wind behind their sails and looked to take advantage of the time on the ball that The Toon were granting us. The first real chance of the game dropped to the feet of David McGoldrick with some lovely pass and move football allowing Dave to get a shot off that Darlow in the Newcastle net pushed away for a corner. There were some questions about Dave possibly being offside but he didn't score so I guess that doesn't matter and I don't know why I'm dedicating so much of this sentence continuing to assess whether Dave was offside or not. Let's stop that and talk about Newcastle's only real chance of the half. Callum Wilson got on the end of a cross into the box with his header narrowly arrowing just past the top left hand corner of the Kop End goal. United were back up the other end shortly after however, and David McGoldrick went close once again with a close range header of his own that flew over the top of the crossbar. There was another chance for United to go ahead after good work down the left flank saw a ball fizzed across the floor of the Newcastle box with John Lundstram narrowly missing out on what would have surely been a tap in at the back post. Shortly after these chances, our very best footballing friend Ryan Fraser made two very silly challenges that really do make you question if he feels he genuinely could have competed for a place at teams like Arsenal. In the course of 3 minutes, Newcastle went from 11 men to 10 men but managed to hold United off until half time. The second half began with United once again on the front foot and this time it was Jayden Bogle who went close to getting the opening goal of the contest with a knock on from Oli Burke finding Bogle just outside the six yard box with the ex-Derby man unable to find a way past Darlow at his near post. Despite United continuing to build pressure it was beginning to look like one of those games where nothing would fall for The Blades and that the opposition would somehow, someway find a way to scrape a win and we'd be staying on square one. But then Billy Sharp competed with Fernandez and the Newcastle man appeared to handle the ball while falling down. Referee Andrew Madley went to the review area and gave the penalty to United! Up stepped Billy Sharp and the skipper duly converted to not only give United the lead with 18 minutes of play left but bagging his 100th goal for the club and the first player to reach that milestone since Keith Edwards in 1984. It's an incredible feat for Sharp and it's very fitting that he manged to get his 100th goal for the club he grew up supporting and spent three separate spells with over the spell of his 17 year career in front of the Kop. It's just such a shame that we as supporters weren't there to see him score it and join in with the celebrations. But United were up and it looked like we'd finally be able to secure our first win. Of course, things are never that simple when following with United and not only was our keeper seemingly as blind as Ant in Byker Grove (listen carefully to Rammers when he's speaking to our physio and you'll hear him exclaim 'I'm blind man!') but Newcastle had brought on their cities favourite son. No, not that one, not that one either, nooooo, he's been retired for years! I'm talking about Andy Carroll! If there's one thing that our backline hates more than anything else, it's the introduction of a target man striker. The crosses began to come in and the nails were beginning to be bitten. Dave fouls on the edge of the box... It's straight at Rammers. Cross aimed towards Carroll in the box... Overhit and behind for a goalkick. It looked like we'd actually done it, we've won our first league match in six months. Then Jayden Bogle decided he wanted to make sure every Blades fan wasn't celebrating a win too prematurely. A long ball from Newcastle looked like it was going nowhere with Rammers calling off Bogle to claim the ball and waste the last few seconds of the game. Bogle either heard the call late or not at all as our right wing back proceeded to chest the ball back and behind Ramsdale who was now in no man's land and the ball slowly bouncing it's way to our goal. Was it going in? Was it going to miss? Lady luck was on our side last night and the ball appeared to be bouncing on the right side of our post with Rammers just pushing the ball away at the last minute to make sure. The corner came in and a shot bounced wide of our net and United had done it! We've finally won a league game of football! It's been a long time coming and after being on the end of so many single goal scorelline's this season it was very satisfying to be on the opposite side of that equation. But despite the 1-0 scoreline and Newcastle being down to 10 men for about 50 minutes of the game this could easily have been 3 or 4 nil. We looked a lot more like the side that took the Premier League by storm last season and looked a lot more self assured on the back of the win against Bristol Rovers at the weekend. It just feels so, so good to have watched a good United performance and win in a season that has not been full of positives. We've got a tough run of fixtures coming up in the coming weeks with visits to both Manchester clubs and hosting Tottenham at the weekend but I'm going to be honest, I'm looking a lot more positive on these games after Tuesday's game. Fingers crossed we can get something out of those three games! Until then, UTB. 2008 was a pretty important year if you ask me. Barack Obama was elected to become president of the United States and thusly became the first person of colour to become the most powerful man on the planet (sorry Piers, but just being on morning television does not make you a god amongst men). The greatest superhero movie of all time (in my opinion of course, send in your favourite if you'd like) The Dark Knight was released and made a household name out of Heath Ledger before his untimely death. You might be thinking why I'm waxing lyrical about things that came out in 2008 and how it relates to United's first competitive victory in almost 6 months, well on the music side of things a little known artist by the name of Katy Perry (aka the original cat lady, I think that was her thing once anyway? She definitely had a cat and it was put on social media... Pft, she probably was) released a seminal pop classic by the name of Hot N Cold. It's not her best song (I reckon her best release was probably Teenage Dream, or E.T. with Kanye) but it did very well indeed reaching 3rd in the Billboard Top 100 and charting within the top 5 in countries such as the UK, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand. In the song, Katy rues the swaying mood changes in her partner's interest in her. Now onto the Sheffield United link because we were very Hot N Cold in our win this weekend. At times, we looked like the United that were blowing away teams last season and managed to balance a challenge on European football with a very respectable run to the Quarter-Finals of the FA Cup and then a few minutes later looking very much like the team that still haven't won a league game since mid July and making Bristol Rovers look like Bayern Munich. But in the end, much like Katy managed to convince her partner to marry her in the video for Hot N Cold, we came away with a positive result that made us happy and booked our place in the 4th round of the cup. So enough talking about 2008, let's talk about the present day.
Despite once again having a celebration squad available for the trip to the Memorial Stadium, changes were afoot with Ethan Ampadu and Ben Osborn dropping into the left centre back and left wing back roles respectively as well as John Lundstram returning to the starting XI after serving his three match ban and Lys Mousset retaining his place in the XI despite totalling his Lamborghini during the week. Rovers on the other hand gave a start to a man who was a constant thorn in the side of United when we were back in League 1 in Erhun Oztumer. A debut was also handed out to goalkeeper Joe Day. And just 6 minutes into the game, Day's debut would start horribly after he inadvertently palmed a Mousset header into the back of his net after our Frenchman sent a looping header towards the goal after a wicked cross from Osborn on the left. United had more chances to add to the lead shortly after with Lundstram and McGoldrick either failing to pull the trigger or sending efforts just wide of the post. But just as we looked to build a commanding lead, we went from hot to cold and Rovers equalised thanks to a set piece that saw the brilliantly named Alfie Kilgour jump above Chris Basham and power home past Ramsdale to put the League 1 outfit back on level terms despite the first half ending level United looked nervous as the half ended and were probably thankful for the halftime whistle to blow when it did as Rovers were beginning to probe and ask questions of the defense. The second half started with Rovers again knocking on United's door but The Blades managed to ride the wave of pressure and began to play our way back into the game. The introduction of Oli Burke for Mousset just after the 50th minute would prove to be the catalyst that powered United onto victory. The Scotsman's ability to skin just about anyone and muscle them off the ball disrupted the Rovers backline and allowed United to quickly counter when we were under pressure and that's how we got the lead back with a swift counter eventually seeing John Fleck play in Burke who blazed past the Bristol backline and didn't make the same mistake he did earlier in the game and placed his effort past the keeper and into the net. But then United went cold again and 3 minutes later Rovers were once again on level terms with Max Ehmer slotting home from close range much to the chagrin of pretty much every United fan. But just as it looked like we'd thrown away yet another game we went straight up the other end and retook the lead with Jayden Bogle finishing a move involving McGoldrick and Burke to get his second goal in five games and from this point on United looked a lot more assured and started to exert a little bit of Premier League quality (where has this been all season?) With Burke and Osborn going close to adding to our tally. There was some late pressure from our hosts but The Blades hung on and secured passage to the 4th round of the Cup and, more importantly, secured our first competitive win of the season. It might not have been pretty at times, the opposition might have been a team that some people think we should have just blown away but my God does it feel good to be writing about a United win again. There were glimpses on Saturday of the team that defied the critics last season with our third goal probably being the closest we've looked to last season's vintage. But then there was bits of the game where we did look like that team that has so far stunk up England's top flight, but we managed to see out this game and secure that win and that is what's most important. People say that the FA Cup doesn't matter anymore but when your looking for something positive in a season full of negatives, this win could be the turning point this team needs to kick on and at least get a respectable points tally and *whisper it* perhaps make another run to the latter stages of the competition. But anyway, I'll leave you to it. Let's see how we do against Newcastle. Until next time, UTB. I thought that taking a month off from covering United might lead to a change in fortunes. I thought it used to work during the back end of our promotion season back in 2019. 'If I don't write about United when we lose, then surely we'll win the next game?' Is what I used to think but then that dissipated during last season. Do you remember last season? When we were good? When we didn't look frightened when taking on any team in this division be it Norwich or Manchester City? When there were some people contemplating trips to the likes of Kazakhstan and Amsterdam as we went knocking on the doors of the established elite in the division? All that was 6 months ago but it feels a hell of a lot longer. We've now gone 19 games in all competitions without a win and already look on course to become the worst team that has ever competed in top flight history period. We're making the Derby 07/08 team look like Bayern Munich as we continue to become experts in failure. It's so, so, so sad to see players like Norwood, Fleck and Stevens look so out of their depth when these players were a massive part of our rise to the top table of English football just 3 years after playing in League One. Let's get this review over and done with.
After a Covid spike (oh yeah, just to add insult to our mounting injury crisis, it looks like a lot of the squad have got Covid which is just fantastic) within the squad and injured players still not back, United played a skeleton squad that had six subs on the bench as opposed to the league maximum of nine which included 16 year old Antwoine Hackford (more on him later). John Fleck and Oli Norwood were restored to the starting XI with Jayden Bogle finally making his much anticipated league debut after his impressive outings against Burnley in the cup and scoring against Brighton. Enda Stevens was moved into the LCB slot due to the absent Jack Robinson with Ben Osborn moving other to take over at LWB. McGoldrick and Mousset led the line. Palace controversially allowed Luka Milojevic not only play but captain Palace despite being indicted in breaking Coronavirus restrictions a few days before the game. Apart from that, the newly in form Christian Benteke (yes you read that correctly, this is indeed 2021 and not 2015) led the line for The Eagles with Wilfred Zaha and Andros Townsend in support. 3 Minutes into the game and United were already 1-0 down. A lovely ball from Andros Townsend was sprayed out wide to Zaha who looked to have the beating of Egan, The Ivorian international slid the ball across the area and despite Norwood getting a touch on the ball, it aided Palace instead of hindering them and allowed Jeffrey Schlupp to curl home past Ramsdale and more or less already put the game to bed. United didn't even look bothered about trying to find an equaliser despite having 81% possession of the ball at one point during the first half. The best effort that United managed to muster during this period came from Bogle with Ampadu playing in a lovely side rule pass that allowed Bogle time and space to get a shot off that Guaita comfortably saved. To be fair to Bogle, I think the shot that he did get off was the best that he could do in the situation aside from scoring with the angles playing against him. After this, United went back to looking uninterested and, just on the cusp of halftime, Ebrechi Eze scored one of the best goals I've had the pleasure to see in recent times. Picking the ball up in his own half, Eze set off and danced away from a hapless challenge from Norwood and then made Ampadu look very, very silly with a lovely bit of footwork that made it look like Eze was taking on the 17 year old version of Ampadu that had just come through at Exeter rather than the 20 year old Welsh international who's played in the Champions League. After that, Eze curled home past Ramsdale to fully kill off the game all before the second half had even begun. I don't really have a lot to say about the second half to be honest because it truly was one of the most dire halves of football I've ever watched from a United perspective and that's coming just weeks after watching games against Southampton, Leicester and Burnley. The one big positive in the second half (aside from continuing to watching Eze and Zaha toy with us, I do really, really like those players and I wish we'd bought Eze when we had the chance) was the introduction of 16 year old forward Antwoine Hackford. Still in year 11 and from Arbourthorne, it was lovely to see a young lad make his top flight debut for a club that he's grown up with. It does make me feel old seeing players turn out for United who are younger than my sister but it's still an incredible achievement for the lad and he's living the dream that so many of people that age in Sheffield will harbour. Pulling on a Sheffield United jersey in the Premier League. What would have topped it off would've been if his goal bound effort wasn't cleared off of the Palace line in the dying embers of the game. But in a season that's been full of negatives and a year as a whole that was pretty negative, seeing a 16 year old lad debut for his boyhood club really does warm the heart. I hope we get the chance to see more of him as the season progresses. Aside from that there's not much else to say really. We were absolutely crap as per usual this season and it just becomes more and more of a chore to watch. Instead of looking forward to watching United on weekends it's switched to the complete opposite and it's just become sad. But we all still watch them because we still all hope that somehow, someway Wilder will turn this round somehow and everything will be fine. It probably won't be but we still can hope. Until next time, UTB. |
AuthorHi my name is John and i will be giving my thoughts on the blades matches and all blades related news in this section Archives
November 2022
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