Stefan is the hero as Blades stay sharp
NOT LONG ago, Sheffield United looked destined for a scrap for survival as they languished in the relegation zone but now Nigel Clough’s side find themselves in the top half after they edged out MK Dons.
Stefan Scougall’s solitary goal in the first half was enough for the FA Cup quarter finalists to claim their seventh straight win in all competitions and continue their remarkable turnaround.
The awful pitch at stadium:mk meant that this was always going to be a scrappy game and as a result the Blades’ lead was rarely threatened by their blunt hosts.
Clough said: “We said after the Gillingham game that that was our best three points of the season, but that’s been superseded by this.
“It’s because of the circumstances of it – the quality of opposition, what’s gone into our games of late.
“That was above and beyond – the hard work that they put in was on a different level and to keep a clean sheet again along with another away victory is incredible.
“For 20 minutes in the second half, we could have had that second goal because we played well enough to get one.”
Sheffield United took the lead halfway through the first half when a good through ball by Conor Coady sent Scougall away one-on-one with the Scot finishing calmly into the bottom corner.
This was, however, the only flash point of an otherwise dull first half in which MK Dons were unable to provide any semblance of a threat to their opponents’ goal.
The Blades almost doubled their advantage soon after the restart when Jose Baxter’s scruffy effort was cleared off the line by Jordan Spence.
Dons goalkeeper David Martin then made a good save with his legs to deny Baxter.
The closest the Dons came to what would have been an undeserved equaliser came when Sanmi Odelusi headed Ryan Hall’s cross over with 12 minutes left.
And Dons boss Karl Robinson accepted his side didn’t do enough to get anything out of the game.
He said:“I’m not going to argue that we deserved to win it because we didn’t play enough football to win it.
“We can’t say that we were dominant or classy in possession – far from that, we definitely huffed and puffed.
“They made sure players weren’t running off them and blocked runners.
“But because we were trying to be honest, they ran beyond our back line and scored a very wellworked goal.
“The players were told to look out for that but they just switched off.”