Chris Wilder's "anxiety" point after Sheffield United injury concern with Sheffield Wednesday clash on horizon
Chris Wilder's "anxiety" point after Sheffield United injury concern with Sheffield Wednesday clash on horizon
Chris Wilder played down injury concerns over two of his more important players ahead of a huge week that culminates in a Steel City derby clash with rivals Wednesday at Hillsborough. The Blades’ 1-0 victory over Preston North End this afternoon maintained their two-point advantage over rivals Burnley, who beat Luton Town, but appeared to come at a cost.
Influential midfielder Vini Souza came off at the break with an injury issue while United played out victory without another key man in Gustavo Hamer, who made way after going down for some treatment. With another game on Tuesday night at home to Bristol City before the derby clash at Hillsborough, the sight of both men failing to complete the game will have caused understandable concern amongst Unitedites.
But Wilder admitted he is “absolutely certain” that the pair will be available for Tuesday night, with Femi Seriki’s minutes also being carefully managed after he replaced Souza at the break. “I had no issue putting Jes [Rak-Sakyi] on,” the Blades boss added.
"Tom Cannon rolled his ankle a couple of weeks ago and I thought his contribution was good, Callum [O’Hare] was good, there were some really positive performances. When Anel and Robbo had to deal with that direct play, they dealt with.
"Whatever teams need to do to stick it on us, they'll stick it on us. They did and we found an answer. In the first half I was looking to my right, not so much second half but they're chasing the game, they've got nothing to lose.
"It will look pretty nervy and a pretty tight game, I never really felt that. I thought the performance was good. I didn't think the performance really matched the scoreline. They were difficult opponents to play against with first and second balls, very direct. Late on they chucked a lot of Hail Marys at us and we had to see it out.”
United could have gone ahead as early as the second minute as Tyrese Campbell mis-hit a golden chance to score while Freddie Woodman denied him later. But he eventually found a way through in the second half to head home Harrison Burrows’ pinpoint cross for his second goal in as many games.
"I was delighted with the start we made,” Wilder added. “I thought we really should have been pretty comfortably ahead at half-time with the amount of play we had - Gus had about 15 shots - and the way we moved the ball. We caused them all sorts of problems.
"We talked about it at half-time, we just had to keep doing it. Maybe there was more anxiety in the stadium than there was with the manager and the coaches because we weren't winning the game and we're expected to. But we had to talk about keep doing the right things, which we did, and make the game come to you instead of you chasing the game.
"We found the moment and it was a brilliant cross by Harrison and a great bit of movement by Tyrese. Today we were against stubborn opposition who tried to kill the game - which we get - and you saw things happening that I'm not going to talk about.
"We had to overcome that and we did, losing arguably our best player at half-time as well. But I thought Hamza [Choudhury]’s performance in the second half was outstanding and showed everybody why we brought him to the football club.”