Sheffield United players handed promotion challenge despite boss giving credit
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Victory at Cardiff City on Saturday ensured United would go into the World Cup break in the automatic promotion places, after their fourth win in five games sent them two points clear of third-placed Blackburn Rovers.
United have 38 points from their 21 league games so far, an impressive effort considering Heckingbottom has been dealt a succession of injury headaches to key men and many members of his squad have been forced to play through injury and illness as a result.
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Hide Ad“We have to be better, we want o play better than we are playing and we want to win more games than we are,” Heckingbottom admitted. “But if you actually look at it, and there have been lots of things that people don’t know about with the players and what we’ve gone through and what we’ve been doing, I’ve got to give a lot of people a lot of credit.
“But we need to be better. We have 38 points from 21 but we need more than that in the next 21. That’s got to be the aim, to keep improving, and that’s why we need players back and available. We have 13 or 14 first-team players now and not all of them can play, you can only pick 11, but there’s a vast majority of those who would be playing in every 11 between now and the end of the season. So we need them back and we want them back.”
United’s injury crisis has particularly affected the left side of their defence, with Jack Robinson becoming its latest victim when he was forced to limp off with a hamstring complaint early in the game against the Bluebirds. Jack O’Connell, Rhys Norrington-Davies and Max Lowe remain sidelined, along with teammates such as Jayden Bogle, Sander Berge and Anel Ahmedhodžić, who missed out in South Wales with an illness that Heckingbottom admits may keep the Bosnian out for some time.
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