Battling Sheffield United earned a share of the spoils at home to Chelsea this afternoon thanks to Oli McBurnie’s injury-time equaliser. The Blades twice fought back from going behind at Bramall Lane to give their survival bid a boost.
Chelsea went ahead through Thiago Silva before Jayden Bogle’s equaliser. Noni Madueke put the Blues back ahead in the second half before McBurnie’s calm finish in front of the Kop earned the Blades a point from a game in which they had less than a third of possession but had almost double the number of shots that Chelsea mustered on Ivo Grbic’s goal.
Here’s how we rated United’s players on another interesting evening at Bramall Lane...
1. Ivo Grbic 5
Kept his place as expected despite his mistake at Liverpool on Thursday and it was noticeable that after his first passback from Trusty he took no chances and booted it straight out of play rather than risk further touches and another embarrassing episode. Left awfully exposed by his defence for Chelsea's opener but didn't face another shot in the first half. To my untrained eye I wonder if he did enough for Madueke's goal, seeming to shift his weight to the right before the shot flew past him to his left? Will have had flashbacks to Anfield when Bogle passed back and he took a heavy touch forcing him to slide in and concede a corner with Gallagher lurking
2. Jayden Bogle 7
Lit up an otherwise-quiet opening exchange with a lovely pirouette on the ball and then got the Blades back on level terms with a tight-angle finish which took a nick off 'keeper Petrovic on its way in
3. Mason Holgate 6
Solid rather than spectacular on the right of United's back three and earned a good ovation from the home faithful when he made way for McAtee with United chasing the game
4. Anel Ahmedhodzic 8
Was excellent against Liverpool and carried that on here with a superb touch to get to the ball first ahead of Madueke after the Chelsea man looked to have got the wrong side of him and onto a through-ball. Timed two tackles superbly on Jackson when getting either slightly wrong would have had United in big trouble, especially considering the second was in the United area. Losing the captaincy was aimed at focusing his mind and it certainly seems to have done the trick