Sheffield United hoping for "outstanding" Anel Ahmedhodzic injury boost ahead of crunch Luton Town clash

Sheffield United will give captain Anel Ahmedhodzic as much time as possible to prove his fitness for their crunch Boxing Day clash against relegation rivals Luton Town at Bramall Lane. The Bosnian missed Friday night's trip to Aston Villa with a hamstring issue.

Ahmedhodzic missed out completely at Villa while four key men dropped to the bench as United looked to manage the recovery from the weekend defeat at Chelsea, which saw a lot of physical and mental energy exerted in search of a result. It was another demanding evening at Villa Park, with the home side enjoying the majority of possession and territory, but United almost pulled off the perfect away performance before their 97th-minute equaliser cancelled out Cameron Archer's opener 10 minutes earlier.

Chris Wilder, the Blades boss, revealed striker Oli McBurnie volunteered to be named on the bench at Villa despite struggling, while key men including Gus Hamer and James McAtee helped give United fresh impetus after being introduced later in the game. The Blades can breathe more life into their survival bid with victory over Rob Edwards' fellow strugglers and Wilder admitted: "We need to get the performance right but you can't quieten it down.

"Everyone sees league tables. We do go in to the next game and we did tonight to make sure we got the performance and tried to get a result. Then rest, recovery. We have little time to work on the training ground and have a look at the injuries as well. Oli Mac was struggling and put his hand up to go on the bench, and two or three others.

"We lost our captain tonight, so we've had some serious blows that we've had to deal with leading up to tonight and going into one of the best teams in the divisions with a chance for them to go top. Hopefully we can have a look and see where the players are on the back of tonight in terms of selection, work and recover and go again."

On Ahmedhodzic, Wilder added: "We'll just basically look and see how he is. Leave it until the last minute but if he's not right then he's not right and we'll go with what we've got. But it's a big blow, that, because Anel's been good for us.

"I made him captain straightaway and he was outstanding in the three games [against Liverpool, Brentford and Chelsea]. So it's really disappointing to lose a big player. It's well documented that the group is light on experience, Premier League experience, and there's some big characters missing as well.

"Your Egans and Bashams and McBurnie tonight, Tom Davies who came in to give us that Premier League experience. So that's four or five boys who know their way around the Premier League that we're missing, but it gave an opportunity to a few of the other boys tonight and I thought they did well."