It is rare to see a team engrossed, however briefly, in a game of keep-ball to a chorus of olés after a grand total of 27 minutes. But this is a Sheffield United team that has demonstrated, 12 months into Championship life, a penchant for completely ripping up the rulebook. They topped the table by October last year in their first season back in the second tier and such was their first-half dominance over a beleaguered Aston Villa that the stadium announcer greeted added time with the words: “Unfortunately, there are only two minutes left of this.”
Not that their manager was amused. “I’ll sort that out and I apologise on behalf of Sheffield United,” Chris Wilder said. “There are a couple of clubs in the Championship that talk the talk but don’t walk the walk – and I just want us to be humble.”
It cannot have been music to Steve Bruce’s ears, either, when his own supporters broke into chants predicting his imminent P45. He looked impassive as he watched his charges stumble and stagger in the face of irresistible opposition. A fightback never looked forthcoming, but Bruce was unperturbed when asked about his future.
“As manager of Aston Villa, you’re always under pressure,” he said. “You’re always a week away from being in a crisis. I understand that – it goes with the territory.
‘We were so lacklustre and lifeless, and Sheffield blew us away. We were a team that was fragmented and it turned into a circus act.”
The opening goal, with the game five minutes old, was typically soft, as Jack O’Connell was granted the freedom of the Bramall Lane end to head home Oliver Norwood’s pinpoint free-kick.
Wilder’s men laced moments of artistry with a bruising intensity, hurtling into their press like Wile E Coyote slamming into a cliff face.
Norwood smacked the post on 11 minutes after Mark Duffy and John Fleck had snaked through Jack Grealish’s resistance, before Billy Sharp missed a chance to double their lead as his weak shot from inside the area cannoned off Ørjan Nyland.
In the event, it hardly mattered. Villa never found an answer to the Blades’ relentless harrying and it was too easy to question the visitors’ ambition. John McGinn’s attempt to reach Dean Henderson’s hurtling goal kick was meek at best and Duffy gleefully gobbled up the opportunity, letting rip from outside of the penalty area with a shot that scurried beneath Nyland.
By the time Norwood had nonchalantly nestled a free-kick into the top corner from the not-inconsiderable distance of 35 yards, it all began to feel a bit ridiculous. It was like a vastly one-sided game of playground football, the year 11s taunting and bludgeoning the year sevens and still refusing to call off the onslaught. Norwood looked every inch a Premier League player, the Northern Ireland international, with more than 50 caps to his name, running the show.
There were handful of death-defying moments for Wilder’s otherwise well-drilled defence. Villa had been reduced to pot shots in the first half but twice found a passage through the Sheffield United rearguard after the hour. Yet they rarely looked menacing, surrendering possession too cheaply to sustain meaningful pressure.
Still, every manager knows his own position best and the passivity with which his backline allowed Anwar El Ghazi to hare on to a ball through and apply an easy finish while they waited for an offside flag that never came, will have irked Wilder.
By then, though, his men had been out of sight for some time. Kieron Freeman had already picked out Sharp to spin inside the area and riffle home his fourth of the season. He had it in the back of the net once more before full time but the flag was up for offside as his side made it four successive league wins and third place in the table.
