The Battle Of Bramall Lane is a game that lives on in infamy in the world of football. It's so infamous that it has its own Wikipedia page that may or may not be unnecessarily in depth. But on that early spring day, Sheffield United faced West Brom and proceeded to forfeit the game to the visitors 3-0 after we failed to finish the 90 minutes with the required 7 players on the team. It's a fascinating game to read about (and listen about thanks to the cracking MUNDIAL podcast on the game, look it up on Spotify) as it's a game that has a lot of lore behind it. Yesterday's game is somewhat of a modern-day sequel to that game as Sheffield United and Blackpool fought out a ding-dong battle that saw six goals scored and 4 players sent off in a firecracker of an afternoon at The Lane. Let's get on with the review.
Three changes were made from the loss at Stoke with Baldock, Sharp and Osborn all returning to the starting XI. McBurnie, Ahmedhodzic and Jack Robinson were also welcome returns to the matchday 18 as our squad began to look more like a professional outfit and less like a school team. In fact, the only youth team regular left on our bench was Arblaster. On the other side, perennial hero/villain Gary Madine lead the line for The Seasiders. United kicked off and almost immediately had the ball in the back of the net with Doyle getting on the end of a Sharp knockback but it was ruled out for offside. United wouldn't need to wait much longer for the opener however, as James McAtee got on the end of another Sharp knock on and bundled home for his first professional goal and our opener! Blackpool were not dismayed by going behind and instantly tried to force an equaliser with Madine going closest to getting the visitors back on terms with a looping effort that just cleared the crossbar. Blackpool continued to ask the questions as United struggled to break their press. Despite the pressure, United would be the ones to get the next goal with Ndiaye reacting fastest to Maxwell spilling a Doyle cross to nod home and give us a fairly generous two goal lead. Instead of building on our good fortune however and controlling the tempo, we let our opponents back into it on the half hour mark. Poor defending from a corner (sounds familiar?) saw Dougall curl a cross onto Yates head with The Seasiders target man cushioning a header over Wes and into the bottom corner to get themselves back into the game. United created a couple of good chances to add to our total after the 'Pool goal with Tommy Doyle going closest after a Sharp pullback saw the Man City loanee with plenty of time to pick his spot. His fizzing effort was turned over for a corner however, with Maxwell pulling off a cracking save to keep his team in it. His efforts would be rewarded on the cusp of half-time as Yates was at it again to level up the scores with a cool finish after a fast break. It was probably fair with the way the game had panned out to that point with United's two goal lead being a bit fortunate, but it was still vastly disappointing to give away a two-goal lead as the first half ended. How would the second half compare to a first half that had 4 goals? It turns out that the second period would see everything go to hell. It started five minutes after the restart when John Egan played Dougall through on goal after RND was robbed of the ball in defence. With the goal at his mercy, Dougall slotted home to stun United and send the away end into raptures as Blackpool came from two goals down to lead 3-2 with their goals all coming in a (half time excluded) twenty-minute period. It was just pure... Bad from United. We'd looked the gift horse in the mouth and the horse had bitten off our hand because we were rooting around too much, we've thrown away games in the past, but this one just seemed to hurt that little bit more. Perhaps it was because it was the first time we'd done it at home since the return of fans after the pandemic? I digress, we actually did try and get back on equal terms fairly quickly with Sharp and Egan going close. Blackpool smelled blood in the water however, and did nearly get a fourth through Patino on the hour. The game became an attack vs defence exercise as United searched for an equaliser, Norwood fired over but it looked like we would be heading for a third loss on the trot in the most embarrassing of ways. Then the game entered the final 12 minutes. Rhian Brewster was set free on the left flank and just before he could burst into the box, he was brought down by Ekpiteta who was shown a second red card and his marching orders. Ok, we've caught a break, now let's push home the advantage. McBurnie went close with a header the Chris Maxwell somehow got his hand on for a corner. The corner came to nothing but then we were given a penalty after Anel was felled in the box. Brewster stepped up and hit the bar and we've only just started with the craziness. The pressure continued; Anel had the ball in the back of net which was disallowed. Someone did a blatant handball that was missed, chance after chance after chance was missed as it looked like it just wouldn't be our day. Then it happened. A corner, it was punched to Norwood and, instead of doing his trademark 'blaze the ball over the bar' kick he usually does, Norwood kept his cool and slammed home to get an equaliser to send The Lane into raptures. Could we win it? After winning the game, losing the game and drawing the game, could we somehow get a winner? No, in fact, we nearly lost the game with CJ Hamilton weaving through our defence and seeing his goal bound effort blocked by Khadra. Despite time wasting from the Blackpool fans that the ref appeared to be adding time on for, that didn't happen, and the points were shared in a mental afternoon at The Lane. Despite all this the craziness wasn't over as the players clashed after the game which saw Wes and Lavery come together and Wes literally. Choke. Slam. Lavery. Wes was sent off, Lavery was sent off and that was how the game finally came to an end. With a god damn chokeslam. Football never ceases to amaze me. Despite all the craziness. This was not a fantastic performance from United. We created chances and probably had the better ones in the game. But we seem to do that pretty often but this time we just weren't very good. We got a commanding lead against the run of play and instead of settling down and controlling the tempo, we didn't, and we were punished by a Blackpool team who looked well up for the game. Last week we were down to bare bones so there was a valid excuse in the manner we lost but I don't think that can fly this week. Despite us having players playing out of position, we still had a team that wasn't made up of literal teenagers like last week. That Xi that we started with (minus Anel being on the bench) is a fairly strong XI for United but we just struggled with Blackpool who hustled and harried us. But we still got a 2-0 lead. Blackpool shouldn't have got back into that game, but they did and almost won it. That's not bad luck, that's just unprofessional. We need to have a serious look at getting our defence back to being able to defend because we've been holier than Swiss cheese these past few games. We do our job defensively; we're looking at a comfortable win. Instead, it's a draw clinched from the jaws of defeat, and we're left ruing missed again. Something needs to happen, let's see if it happens in midweek. Until next time, UTB.
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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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