Sheffield United given food for thought in promotion bid after forgotten man's display against Burnley's best

Chris Wilder has vowed that Sheffield United’s approach will remain positive going into the final two games of the Championship season before the play-offs - even if some parts of their tactical set-up may change in a bid to reach the Premier League. The Blades face Stoke City and Blackburn Rovers, with Wilder setting them a target of breaking the 90-point barrier.

But many supporters will understandably already have half an eye on what follows, with defeat at Burnley on Monday officially consigning United to the end-of-season shootout as they bid to join Leeds United and the Clarets in the top-flight next season.

United travelled to Turf Moor knowing that they needed to win to keep their outside automatic promotion hopes alive, and began brightly after a slight tactical tweak saw physical Welsh international Kieffer Moore paired with Tom Cannon. Moore tested James Trafford’s handling with a couple of efforts before he was denied a certain goal by a superb Maxime Estève tackle, while Cannon dragged the Blades level with his first goal in United colours.

Moore also won an outstanding 10 aerial duels against statistically the league’s best defence, with boss Wilder describing Estève as “arguably the best defender in the division,” and although United are not about to abandon their principles and become a route-one, “long-ball” team, the option to miss out an opposition press and find Moore could be a useful weapon in their arsenal.

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Moore began the season as United’s first-choice striker but had played only a bit-part role of late before starting at Turf Moor, after undergoing hernia surgery earlier this year. Tyrese Campbell goes back to Stoke on Friday as United’s top scorer, having hit 10 goals in a season for the first time in his professional career, while Cannon’s first goal will be a weight off his shoulders following his big-money move in the January transfer window.

“We’ve been on the front foot all season,” said Wilder. “I’m not having this talk of a ‘negative approach’ in the three games we lost in that week [to Oxford, Millwall and Plymouth which effectively derailed United’s automatic promotion hopes]. We just weren’t good enough in both boxes, which I’ve said a few times now. There’s always been that approach.

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“And that’ll be the approach right the way through. I said to the players before the game that, even when we were in the Premier League, I always thought that we could go and get a win. Wherever we went, and whoever we played. That’s been the attitude of me and the group. Sometimes you fall short because you’re just not good enough, or you don’t do enough, or, like tonight, you concede poor goals and you don’t find those big moments you need to find.

“We might have go-tos, like everybody has. Burnley tonight had a go-to shape to see the game out, and we’ve had that shape. We have a go-to shape to try and risk towards the end of the game. Everybody does it, but there’s no negativity when you when you’ve got 27 wins and you’re trying to get into 90 points. That’s that.

Kieffer Moore’s display gives Sheffield United food for thought for rest of Premier League bid

“The attitude of the team was just a little bit different in terms of the way we set up and our build. Maybe with Kieffer on the pitch, we went into him a little bit quicker and a little bit earlier. It caused them a problem, and it gives us food for thought between now and the end of the season.

“He and Tom were up against arguably the best defender in the division, in my opinion. He was outstanding tonight and has been outstanding all season, as part of a unit that’s conceded 13 goals all season. But we’ve given them a game tonight and we’ve been competitive. We showed an ambition and desire to try and win a game of football. I think that maybe a result from here would have been the right, but we haven’t got that.”