Sheffield United: Big names could be left out of today's game against AFC Wimbledon

The South Yorkshire club signed four new players and completed deals involving three others last month as Chris Wilder sought to bolster its top two credentials.

Although he rejected suggestions that United should consider a change of tactics after failing to win any of their last three matches, Wilder refused to rule-out the possibility of adjusting his starting eleven for the meeting with Neal Ardley’s side.

Declaring United’s latest recruitment drive a success, Wilder said: “Possibly, in the last couple of weeks, we’ve looked at the bench and now had the options to change things. I think we’re pretty much covered now.

“Players have got to grab opportunities, even in training they’ve got to force the issue now. It’s going to be difficult to select and there are possibly going to be some very good players, for the first time, who don’t even get changed on Saturday. But they are still more than good enough to represent this football club.”

With James Hanson, Jay O’Shea and Joe Riley all hoping to make their United debuts and Samir Carruthers, now recovered from injury, set for his second appearance since leaving MK Dons, Wilder has a wealth of talent at his disposal for the visit of Wimbledon. But, with the likes of Matt Done, Stefan Scougall and Caolan Lavery all seeing their places come under threat, maintaining team spirit behind the scenes could prove problematic.

United are second in the table despite taking only a point from their previous three outings and Wilder said: “You can’t look back and beat yourself up about things. It’s more individual mistakes and organisational things. “You don’t take a wrecking ball to it. People will talk about the system. It’s the system that’s got us to this position. We’ve been flexible with it and we all have to be accountable for performances and results.

“You always go again and there’s a lot of football to be played. I’m not burying my head in the sand. We always want more and we’re disappointed we haven’t got more. We’ll always be bold in our approach.”