"Not cocky..." - Gus Hamer message signals growing Sheffield United belief as Portsmouth victory lifts mood
Gus Hamer outlines Sheffield United season hope as post-international break run lifts mood around Bramall Lane
Gus Hamer announced his return from injury in typical Gus Hamer style on Wednesday night - and then roared: “Anything is still possible this season.” The Brazilian-born Dutchman scored a long-range stunner to put the gloss on Sheffield United’s 3-0 win over Portsmouth at Bramall Lane.
He had earlier come off the bench for just his second appearance since recovering from an untimely knee issue that kept him out since the last international break. His return offers an undoubted boost to the Blades as they dragged themselves out of the bottom three, with sights firmly set on a long-overdue climb up the table.
Hamer’s half-hour cameo, and his thunderous effort into the far corner from around 25 yards out, will give boss Chris Wilder further food for thought as he considers when to throw his key man back into the side from the start.
“Yeah, it felt good,” said Hamer ahead of this weekend’s trip to Leicester City. “It felt good to be back on the pitch, and get minutes in after the injury. We worked hard on it, to be back as early as possible. And then if you score a goal, then it's always happy to confirm to yourself that you're back.
“I can make minutes and it's up to the gaffer now who's going to play. If he starts me, I'm ready to play as long as he wants me to play. So, for me, I’m just glad that I got some minutes in the derby. We won with 3-0, a very good result, of course, and then we backed it up today with our performance.
"Not cocky..." - Gus Hamer message signals growing Sheffield United belief as Portsmouth victory lifts mood
“So, yeah, I'm back as well as I can be and then it's up to the physios and the gaffer with what I'm allowed to do, because you don't want to fall back on the injury. So, we have good control over it. We manage it a lot. So, we're going to try as well as possible.”
The Pompey strike was Hamer’s first league goal of the season, after scoring from the halfway line at Birmingham City in the League Cup earlier this term, and although United are far from a one-man team, the availability of a player who won the Championship player of the year gong last term will be huge going into a busy festive period of fixtures.
“It’s been frustrating, yeah,” admitted Hamer on his time on the sidelines. “You want to have points, but it's not me who makes the points. It's the team who make the points. We got a win, we got a draw when I was not playing. Of course, we had a couple of losses.
“Everybody knows that. That's a fact. But, on the other hand, we came back strong and after the international break we had two games, two wins. So, of course, you want to help the team and that's why we came back so early with the injury. So, for me, it's just good to be back.
“Six goals in two games and two clean sheets. I think that's a very good start after the international break. We worked hard in the international break. We had good training sessions. So, yeah, we know what we can do. We know what our abilities are. So, I think we can look forward to the next couple of games because we can look back with very good performances.”
United have been on the back foot this season almost from the very start of it, with a run of seven straight defeats leaving them behind the eight-ball in a campaign they began as one of the pre-season promotion favourites.
They may have given themselves a mountain to climb but a push up the table also cannot be ruled out if they can string a few more results together in the coming weeks and months. “I don't even look at the bottom three, to be honest,” Hamer added.
“I don't want to sound cocky or anything, but I think it's just the team we’ve got, and the team's ability and the defence we’ve got. We shouldn't be in that place in the first place. But that is the reality.
“We've been there. We knocked ourselves out of the situation. So, now we're just looking up the table step by step, and everything is possible in this league. So, I think we have a good chance to still go high up in the league.”