Sheffield United "quieten" doubters as title rivals Leeds United follow vital Blades blueprint

With 13 games to go it is still too early to describe them as defining but if title rivals Sheffield United and Leeds United achieve their aims of promotion this season, then they may well look back on their most recent round of fixtures as pivotal. The Yorkshire sides have created a buffer of points to third-placed Burnley and Sunderland in fourth after both dropped points over the weekend.

Burnley’s goalless draw at Preston North End on Saturday lunchtime highlighted both their biggest strength and most concerning weakness, keeping clean sheets for fun but often unable to marry that up with creativity at the other end of the pitch. United then edged a tight, scrappy affair at Luton Town to pull further clear of Scott Parker’s men.

Leeds then embodied that same spirit in their Monday evening clash with Sunderland, going behind before hitting back to win thanks to sub defender Pascal Struijk’s brace - the winner coming in the final minute of five added on. That is what promotion-winning teams do; they find a way, when the pressure is on.

“It’s always a big week when we’re Sheffield United, in this division,” said Wilder after victory at Kenilworth Road. “We’re a target. We have that target on our back and we had it today. We had to deal with how the opposition played, the way we all know about, and we had to deal with 10,000 of their punters. It’s like a bear pit at times.

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“It’s a difficult place to play your football so it was an experience for the younger players as well. It's not all about the beautiful game, it's not all about how many passes the centre-halves can have and how many times we do this or we do that or we do the other. “It's a competitive game and when you play when you're a young kid, you play to play well.

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“But in any competitive sport, you play to win. I said that after the Watford game, I said it after the Portsmouth game. I'm delighted that we quietened a few down after the Middlesbrough game and settled a few down.

“There are different ways to win and if you're going to be successful at the end of the season, you've got to come to places like this and get a result first and foremost. We've done that, and it was a big three points.”