Sheffield United boss’s rallying cry as Blades bid to keep promotion bid alive

Boss Paul Heckingbottom has remined Sheffield United’s leading players that they must continue to perform for the promotion run-in, or risk the Blades’ hopes of playing in the Premier League next season going up in smoke.

Too many of Heckingbottom’s key men were off the pace at Blackburn on Saturday as a 1-0 defeat, coupled by a 5-0 victory for their nearest challengers Middlesbrough over Reading, reduced United’s lead to four points and blew the automatic promotion race wide open once more.

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United can restore their seven-point cushion over Boro if they beat Reading in Berkshire tomorrow night, but it will take a much-improved display to do so against a side who have earned the majority of their results this season on home soil.

United looked back at the Blackburn defeat this morning, after Heckingbottom granted his players Sunday off to emotionally recharge and spend time with their families.

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“There's clarity, but you've got to perform,” the Blades boss said. “We still have an identity and a way we want to play, and that's more important to me. I got shown the stats again this morning but they don't mean anything. We didn't play like us or how we want to look.

“I don't want anything about us to be average or go into a game hoping to win. I want us to impose ourselves and be the team we want to be, and to do that your big players need to perform.

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“We've got some good players and I don't think anyone will be happy with their performance on Saturday. They would think they can do better. We had patches and moments but we weren't at the levels we wanted to be at.”

Asked if his bigger players must now step up to the plate and get United over the line, Heckingbottom admitted: “They’ve got to. If we don't, we don't go up. Everyone knows that. This is the job we're in, we choose to be in, and you're judged on results. There's always that dilemma. Results can paint over things. We're bothered about performances.

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“What comes with a negative result is everything around it, any sort of negativity and backlash. That's what comes with the results. The other way, when you're winning and we're not at our best, or it’s not good enough to get where we want to be, we can't get carried away with nice things that have been said about us either.”