Sharp Blades get into a winning habit at last
...but it’s back to reality, with City and United next!
SHEFFIELD UNITED’S season has been so unremittingly bleak that the FA Cup has actually seemed welcome. ‘Something to break up the week,’ as veteran defender Chris Basham put it in the match programme.
Don’t bet against them doing a Wigan Athletic and actually lifting the thing while in the process of being relegated.
The task against Plymouth would have been considerably harder had the League One side been able to bring their legendary Green Army with them.
They’re one of those sides of geographical extremity who take pride in the thousands who journey the length of the country to follow them. The club took over 8,500 to Anfield in 2017.
But instead, they were set the task of making some noise in an empty room and were overwhelmed by slick, inventive Premier League opposition. They allowed Chris Wilder’s players time to settle on the ball, advance with it and look up for passing options. The basics of a defensive game were sorely lacking long before Basham broke the deadlock.
Primed by the slick, geometrically precise passing of the excellent John Fleck and Ollie Norwood, the Blades created a half-dozen chances i n the first halfhour alone. Rhian Brewster missed two of them, struggling for or power on a header after ter rising to Enda Stevens’s vens’s cross and mistiming his shot after Fleck drove into the box and laid off.
It’s a tightrope you walk when you’re Sheffield United i n an encounter like this and the scoreline is still blank. Many were ‘sniffing upset’, as Wilder had put it, and there was a hugely significant moment when Panutche Camara was allowed to drift into the box unhindered and latch on to a Luke Jephcott cross from the by-line, just the before the half-hour. He blasted over.
Camara was actually as impressive as anyone in a Plymouth side who should have scented t he Premier League team’s psychological vulnerability and displayed some aggression from the off.
Instead, Plymouth relied on a huge stroke of luck to keep things level, when defender Kelland Watts leapt to an Ethan Ampadu shot with both arms ‘unnaturally’ held up and the ball struck them. Despite a VAR examination, no penalty was awarded. Wilder declared himself ‘baffled’ by the decision. The inconsisten ency of this wretched sys system really knows no lim limits. It was immaterial in the wider scheme of things. Basham struck moments later, rising to head home Billy Sharp’s cross. The space both supplier and finisher were permitted made it look like a training-ground routine. Sharp had doubled the advantage within three minutes of the second half starting. Norwood was given time to size up and despatch a sublime pass which bisected the central defenders and captain Sharp required t hree of t he deftest touches to control the ball, ease it to goalkeeper Michael Cooper’s left and cut it into the net.
Brewster, withdrawn with 10 minutes to play, is an enigma. He works, advances into threatening positions and is prepared to take aim, yet is still to score this season. A ball which sat up for him to strike home in the second half was driven straight at Cooper. Patience comes at a premium amid the unrelenting demands of the Premier League but it is hard to avoid the sense that a run of starts would help. Wilder paid £ 20 million for him but not once has he begun more than three consecutive games this season.
The 20-year-old’s departure was one of a flurry of late changes as Plymouth, better after the hour mark, mounted a late comeback. Camara atoned for his earlier miss to score — running in a shot after Basham’s error on the right side of defence had allowed substitute Byron Moore to advance into the area and cross. Plymouth were lifted but did not threaten again.
Their manager Ryan Lowe did not want to dwell on Camara’s miss, saying: ‘He did well to get in there and the build-up was fantastic.’
Despite three wins in four, including two in the Cup, Wilder was not getting carried away. ‘I think you’ve got to keep it in perspective,’ he said. ‘Two of those teams are out of League One. But there’s no down side to winning games of football and playing well.
‘We dominated the ball, moved it around the pitch. It was generally a decent performance. Job done.’
His team, who have a winnable fifth round home tie with Bristol City, need all the consolations they can find. They now face Manchester City and Manchester United in the space of seven days.