What Chris Wilder told Sheffield United players ahead of win over Sheffield Wednesday

Chris Wilder will have no doubt about the footballing qualities that his players possess so it was a different aspect of their game that the manager focused on ahead of Sheffield United beating Sheffield Wednesday at the weekend.

Tyrese Campbell kept up his recent good form by scoring the only goal of the game and the striker revealed afterwards that it was how the players coped emotionally in a packed-out and boisterous Bramall Lane, rather than physically, that Wilder looked at in the run-in to the first derby in five years.

“There's a lot of emotions attached to this game a big thing the Gaffer said to us was make sure we've got that emotional balance, because sometimes they can get the better of you,” said Campbell. “You can go too far and possibly get sent off. So we have to just make sure we was all in check with our emotions, and make sure we all had the same aim was just to win the game.”

United have almost always been blessed with having had a local lad come through who knows what a derby is all about and there are a few players still in the squad who, though not brought up in Sheffield, have been around long enough to have understood the rivalry.

There are others, though, who are new to the squad this summer and Campbell said those players were given something of an education in the final stages of preparation for this latest instalment of the Sheffield showdown.

“It was a big game for us, for everyone,” Campbel said. “The boys who hadn't really been in before and didn't know what that the derby meant, we found out [on Saturday], before we left the training ground, how much it meant to everyone. And I think the emphasis for us was we had to win this. You know, it's a big game, but we wanted to make sure we were coming out with that good feeling and the excitement.”