Sheffield United fans column: It was a bit better, but we were still fishing for positives at Fleetwood

I suppose Fleetwood was an improvement on the previous two matches, but not by much.
Dean Hammond of Sheffield Utd gets above Shola Ameobi of Fleetwood TownDean Hammond of Sheffield Utd gets above Shola Ameobi of Fleetwood Town
Dean Hammond of Sheffield Utd gets above Shola Ameobi of Fleetwood Town

We saw passes missing their targets by yards, clearances sliced into the crowd and inept marking in our penalty area, but that has been going on all season.

But there was also some decent play, as the policy of playing three (non-marking) central defenders allowed John Brayford and Matt Done to get forward as much as they liked. New man Alex Baptiste was the best of the three at the back.

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Dean Hammond has his critics (including me sometimes), but he showed how we missed him against Rochdale and Burton by holding everything together in the middle.

In front of him Che Adams kept trying and running and Dominic Calvert-Lewin showed a few nice touches. Ryan Flynn also did OK, but most people see him as a better right winger than central midfielder.

But overall it still wasn’t good enough. As the people on Radio Sheffield keep saying, we’re ‘only’ six points off the play-offs. The problem is that at this stage of the season the number of teams between United and sixth place is as important as the number of points.

Now we have to depend on five or six teams doing worse than us in the last two months, not one or two. The way things have been going lately, that doesn’t seem very likely.

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n Football Unites Racism Divides, based at the U-Mix Centre on Asline Road, just a stone’s throw from Bramall Lane, is currently holding a Female Football Festival, which is on until March 20th.

The festival includes, films and talks as well as opportunities to play and watch football. For more details contact Ruth Johnson or Sarah Choonara at 
[email protected] or 0114 2587787, or see the FURD website 
www.furd.org/.