“we’re coming for you n your team Chippy”
“home win from an adventerous, expansive and attacking Oxford United team”
“Hopefully it stays warm, those northerners can’t handle heat
Hopefully they will be knackered after 20 minutes”
“Hopefully a battling, passionate survival fighting spirit. Play every trick in the book, a must win, no more no less”
“Whoever is their best player we need to do what Sam Long did to the Bolton player at Wembley smash him in the first couple of minutes let them know we are here to fight
They are better than us no denying that fact but we need to have more fight and more spirit than them on the day”
“Home win to upset the apple cart.
Cagey 1 nil job that has folk gnawing their knuckle bones…..”
“I have a feeling it will go as you say but with a Brannagan (who I think is scheduled to be back) piledriver with five minutes to go to put us 2-0 up, settle nerves and to create similar scenes to those last five minutes against Watford.”
“I would like to believe that could happen but hell if a gap between the teams in terms of quality. We got a point at home to Burnley though so you never know.”
“A draw would be a amazing, then 3 points v QPR!”
“Rather three points against Sheffield than a draw against QPR. Make the others around us concerned”
“Sheffield United are the best team in the league and their record against the bottom half away is fantastic.
It is far more likely than we beat QPR than Sheff United and QPR are not out of it yet.”
“Love everyone’s enthusiasm, but can’t say I share it!
These guys are a level above Middlesborough, and after the first 15 minutes we didn’t really lay a finger on them last week, bar the occasional set piece.
We’ll keep it close because Rowett knows how to keep things tight, and Wilder tends to be content to shut up shop when they’re ahead (they’ve won their last six away games by the scores of 2-1, 2-1, 1-0, 1-0, 2-1 & 1-0!)
But it’ll take a performance above anything we’ve produced this year to get anything from this one. Hope I’m wrong!”
“Low expectations for this one, almost like an underdog cup game, but upsets can and do happen. Will just support the lads and hope they give it everything. Can’t ask more than that.”
“a decent draw (or win?!) would give us so much belief…but their recent results suggest they will happily settle for a narrow victory and its hard to see any other result unfortunately.”
“If we play with anything remotely like the lethargy we displayed at theirs then it could become very messy with our goal difference seriously affected. It was one of that batch of games that questions began about Des’s ability to get this lot motivated. Equal worst performance of the season up there – possibly the worst in terms of effort. Sheffield United visibly eased up from about the 50 minute mark, they could tell the game was comfortably won and that we had no desire to even try and get back in it.”
“No big fan of CW, but he did our goal difference a favour from being far worse than it is of today.”
“Need to cause a shock either against Sheffield United or Leeds to stay up I reckon.”
“Interesting (to me, at least) that Leeds seem to get the plaudits in this division, but Sheffield United have won 4 more points than them this this season and are deservedly top.
However, with a bit of digging you can kind of see why – Sheffield United are flat-track bullies (and very good at it too).
They’ve lost as many games as Leeds and Burnley combined – but they don’t drop anywhere near as many unnecessary points. Their defeats are against Leeds x2, Burnley, Middlesbrough, Sunderland and (anomaly) Hull. Their draws vs WBA x2, Coventry, Bristol City, Norwich, Pompey and QPR.
That’s just 9 points dropped against anyone outside the Top 8. For comparison Burnley have dropped 21 to the same sides (too much tippy tappy) and Leeds 23 (dodgy Keeper).
That said, they’re not destroying teams left, right and centre. In fact, their win against us is their only one all season (of a whopping 26 wins) by more than two goals.
With our ability to be ‘in’ games under Rowett (we’ve only been two goals behind in the depths of injury time v Pompey and West Brom) we should again be competitive.
So whilst Sheffield United look like the most ruthless and efficient winning machine in The Championship, a pragmatic Rowett side is (as ever) capable of nicking an unlikely result…”
“You finish where you deserve to but, slightly contradictorily, I don’t always think the best team takes the title. I certainly thought Ipswich were better than Plymouth when they both went up a few years back but Plymouth ground out results where Ipswich sometimes dropped them where you wouldn’t expect, to go with your point about Sheffield United being ruthless against the weaker teams.
Likewise I thought we were generally a better side, certainly with a higher ceiling, than Northampton when we both got promoted. I think that’s a good comparison to Sheffield United and Leeds, our team was incredible for League 2 whereas they were brilliantly organised and had the occasional moment of magic from Ricky Holmes, then when we both got promoted we finished just outside of the playoffs and they were lower mid table. The main similarity is there keepers though, they had Adam Smith who was excellent while we flip flopped between Slocombe and Buchel, who weren’t. Cooper is one of the best at this level whereas Meslier is a liability. Every chance if you simply swapped keepers there’s a 10 point swing right there.”
“They look like they will go up and come straight back down again, no one for them to flat track bully in the premier league. Still well worth it for the money that keeps you at the top of the Championship.
We were terrible up there, looked like a conference team vs a top 4 prem team though, we will need to be a lot, lot better to get anything.”
“Sheffield Utd once went 50 games without a penalty, I think only surpassed by England who went 53. We’ve gone 39 so far surely it will come soon, I just hope Cam is playing when it does.”