Right then. I’ll be off. It’s been, well, entirely as many people expected. Until next time! Here’s a match report:
Updated
Chris Wilder has a chat:
I think it’s a point gained. It was a very bitty game, littered with fouls, and really get going for both teams. We missed a really good chance first half, they missed a really good chance second half, so it’s honours even. If they play like they did against us, against the other teams, then I’m sure they’ll pick up points along the way. It was a local derby, a passionate crowd, players giving everything for the cause, not a lot of quality on show. We’ll take a point and move on.
So United stay third, and their next away game is at Leeds on 16 March. Wednesday are 13th, but are the only team in the top 15 with negative goal difference (theirs is -7), which doesn’t help.
John Egan sums up the game well enough: “I think it was a scrappy game. A typical derby game. We’ll take the clean sheet and get ready for the next one.”
By the time United play against Rotherham at the weekend they will have gone an entire month without conceding a goal. This is impressive. Wednesday meanwhile have conceded one goal in their last six home games. This is the third successive Sheffield derby to end 0-0. So, in short, the scoreline isn’t an enormous surprise.
Final score: Sheffield Wednesday 0-0 Sheffield United
90+3 mins: It’s over, and the spoils are shared!
Updated
90+2 mins: Hector flicks on a long ball to Aarons, who floats a shot over the bar from 25 yards.
90+1 mins: Wednesday swing a free kick into the area. It’s cleared to the half-way line, and back into the area it goes. Hector is now playing at being an attacking colossus.
90+1 mins: There will be two minutes of stoppage time, or thereabouts.
89 mins: Wednesday’s final change sees Fletcher go off and Atdhe Nuhiu come on.
87 mins: Including stoppage time we have been averaging one shot on target per 45 minutes of play. Two minutes plus stoppages remain.
85 mins: A long spell of United pressure ends with Aarons running away with the ball, leading a break. He runs and runs and runs until he runs into a group of defenders, and then suddenly they have the ball and he doesn’t.
82 mins: United win a free kick on the right for no obvious reason, and the delivery provokes more penalty-area panic. Hector has morphed since half-time from a grappling, tussling, ill-disciplined free-kick-donation exercise into a defensive colossus.
81 mins: United provoke a prolonged bout of penalty area ping-pong, but come out of it with no more than a corner, which is cleared.
Updated
80 mins: Hector pickpockets Bannan, cuts in from the left and shoots from the edge of the area, but Hector is on the spot again.
79 mins: Another substitution, as Wednesday take off Iorfa and bring on Morgan Fox.
77 mins: The corner comes in, Westwood gets befuddled by the flight of the ball and in the end he desperately fingertips it away from danger as it drops behind him!
76 mins: Hector fluffs a clearance, but Sharp can’t do anything with the ball. Then United lift the ball into the area, McGoldrick slides it across, and Hector gets this clearance right, and needs to!
75 mins: As I type that, we get a prolonged spell of nothingmuchery.
72 mins: This half has been a lot better than the first. It has just somehow been a crucial bit saner.
68 mins: A second United substitution sees David McGoldrick come on and Gary Madine depart, to loud catcalls and whistles.
67 mins: Another shot from Wednesday, though Palmer’s effort from range goes well over the bar.
65 mins: A shot on target! And that is the best chance of the game, from Sheffield Wednesday. They break down the left, Aarons’ low cross is superb and Hutchinson, bang central and seven yards out, shoots straight down the middle and straight at Henderson!
61 mins: Sheffield United make their first change, bringing Martin Cranie on and taking Kieran Dowell off.
59 mins: Wednesday nearly think about maybe at some point having a shot potentially on target! By which I mean, they put in a couple of dangerous crosses.
57 means: Nearly a chance for United! A long ball forward is nodded back towards Westwood but Sharp very nearly gets there first! He doesn’t, though, and gives away a free kick for his challenge on the Wednesday goalkeeper.
Updated
53 mins: United go down the other end and win a corner, which from the moment it’s taken seems destined for O’Connell’s head. He does indeed reach it first, but he heads into Fletcher’s back.
51 mins: Aarons buys a free-kick for Wednesday very near the left-hand corner flag. The referee delays the taking of it having spotted some holding in the penalty area (Hector inevitably involved), and Bannan’s set piece is easily cleared.
49 mins: Basham pulls back to Norwood, whose shot from a yard or two outside the area is poor enough for Sharp to have a go at turning it in at the far post, but he doesn’t quite contort his body in time.
Updated
47 mins: An overhead kick! An actual overhead kick! It’s Fletcher with it, but he never threatens to get his foot round the ball, and instead hoofs it well over the bar.
46 mins: The second half is under way!
So much for @MaliciousA’s prediction. Forestieri is off, and George Boyd is on.
Half time change for the Owls;
— Sheffield Wednesday (@swfc) March 4, 2019
⬅️ Forestieri
➡️ Boyd#swfcLIVE
Neil Clough, meanwhile, reckons this would work as Wednesday walk-out music. I’ll let you be the judge:
I admire your optimism.
@Simon_Burnton I feel that Forestieri's thrilling heroics will shine through and nick a scrappy winner. As is right and proper.
— MaliciousA (@MaliciousA) March 4, 2019
United had the only shot on target, a pretty decent one from the head of Madine in the seventh minute, and might have had a penalty for Hector’s corner-defending physicality, but at no other point has either team even hinted at possibly even vaguely threatening to score. Things can only get better.
Half time: Sheffield Wednesday 0-0 Sheffield United
45+4 mins: And that’s half time! It has been a classic British derby, in that it has involved a lot of rushing about, people kicking and jumping into each other, a great deal of wild slashing at bouncing footballs, and not a lot of the cerebral stuff.
45+2 mins: The ball goes down United’s right flank again and Madine falls over again, this time with Hector at his back. The referee gives the free kick, and this time Madine’s fall is less popular. It is one of Hector’s cleaner challenges of the evening, though most of his have been filthy.
45+1 mins: Madine falls over on the slipper, sodden surface, and gets one of the night’s louder cheers for doing so.
45+1 mins: Into stoppage time we fly, and there will be about three minutes of it.
43 mins: United clear the ball, and Dowell and Hutchinson collide in trying to win it in midfield. Both physios come on for a while, but the players are fine.
42 mins: Wednesday keep the ball in the final third for a while, with excitement mounting in the stands, but Bannan’s cross towards Fletcher is headed clear, and that’s the end of it.
38 mins: United win a free kick on the right, but Reach gets the ball first and heads behind.
37 mins: Approaching half-time, and United are leading 1-0 on the shots-on-target metric.
33 mins: It is absolutely pouring in Sheffield. The weather and the occasion are combining to make this all puff and no precision.
Updated
30 mins: Fletcher is eventually coaxed back to his feet, and play continues.
27 mins: Fletcher wins the ball on the Wednesday’s right flank, about 10 yards outside the penalty area, gets up and then goes down again. That looks worrying, and the physios are on.
24 mins: Another free kick ends in Wednesday’s first shot of the day, the ball being headed clear to Lees, whose miscued effort from the edge of the area squirms miles wide.
21 mins: Wednesday attack down the left, where Aarons sends in a very nice left-footed cross. There are no team-mates anywhere near it when it drops, but a defender nevertheless feels forced to put it behind. The corner is cleared.
19 mins: Both sides win free kicks, but nothing much comes of either of them. The game is yet to calm down.
16 mins: The corner leads to another corner, which Westwood claims easily. Hector is then shown on TV hilariously wrestling with Madine off the ball as the first corner came in, and that is a penalty waiting to happen.
14 mins: Madine wins the header and United break. Norwood crosses well again, and Lees heads it behind. Another corner kick, this at the other end.
13 mins: A roar from the crowd as Forestieri wins a free kick, giving Wednesday a chance to get on the front foot. They choose to keep the ball rather than swing it immediately forward, and eventually play a fine pass down the right for Reach, whose cross finds Fletcher, whose header hits Basham and goes behind.
Updated
10 mins: United get down the left, and Bannon deflects the cross behind for a corner. Fletcher wins the header, and the referee spots someone deliberately blocking Westood and gives a free kick.
7 mins: Save! Norwood curls a cross towards the far post, Madine wins the header six yards out but Westwood blocks it!
7 mins: Westwood’s big boot downfield is flicked on by Fletcher but won back by United, who boot upfield themselves and win another throw-in.
6 mins: Play gets congested in Wednesday’s left-back area. At one point I count 12 players within about five yards of the ball, so it’s hardly surprising nobody managed to do very much with it. It ends with a United long throw that flies over the area and out the other side.
3 mins: It has now calmed down a bit. Several players have taken a touch and on occasion even looked up before getting rid of the ball. Hector, though, has just smashed a 60-yard pass into touch.
2 mins: A full minute played, and I don’t think anyone has controlled the ball yet. It’s just been walloped about.
1 min: Peeeeep! Sheffield United get the game started!
That noise 🙌 #swfcLIVE pic.twitter.com/Jj50S1THWj
— Sheffield Wednesday (@swfc) March 4, 2019
I’m a big fan of Simple Minds’ Waterfront as walk-out music. I once had the 12” and particularly liked the extended intro on the extended version, but I can’t seem to find it on YouTube. Anyway, I digress. A football match is about to start.
And out they come!
Updated
The teams are in the tunnel. Brace yourselves.
Chris Wilder has a chat:
I’ve just made sure that we approach it in a balanced way. We’re playing well, since the turn of the year. We’ve had some great performances and we’ve got to continue that. It’s going to be frantic, passionate. I think we’ve got a good group that’s ready for it and up for it and we have to be because they will test us in every part of our game tonight. We’re in good nick, and we’ll see where that takes us.
Bruce has won seven and lost just the one of nine matches in which he has managed teams against Sheffield United. That’s quite the record.
Steve Bruce had a 55-game spell in charge of Sheffield United between July 1998 and May 1999, but there were no Sheffield derbies in that time, so this is a first for him. This is what he said about the game in his pre-match press conference:
It’s on the night, on the occasion, who handles it best, who handles the situation better and who doesn’t make the mistake. Will it be won by a flash of genius or a mistake? All of those things come into effect. Let’s look forward to it.
I always say, the whole of the country will be watching the game on Monday, let’s make it a spectacle. Yes, there is always going to be huge rivalry but just keep it at a huge rivalry. It’s all about one thing - getting a result.
The teams
The starting XIs will look something like this:
Sheffield Wednesday: Westwood, Palmer, Fletcher, Bannan, Lees, Reach, Hutchinson, Iorfa, Hector, Aarons, Forestieri.
Sheffield United: Henderson, Stevens, Fleck, O’Connell, Basham, Dowell, Sharp, Egan, Madine, Norwood, Freeman.
📋 Here's how we line-up in tonight's Steel City derby, in association with @Ladbrokes
— Sheffield Wednesday (@swfc) March 4, 2019
🔵⚪️ | #swfcLIVE pic.twitter.com/cwrS7D1goK
⚔️⚽️ CONFIRMED TEAM | Chris Wilder makes 3⃣ changes. O’Connell, Basham & Madine all start. It’s @swfc v @SUFC_tweets in the @SkyBetChamp, kick-off is 7.45pm#sufc #ForgedinSteel #twitterblades pic.twitter.com/XcSnOR8Jox
— Sheffield United (@SUFC_tweets) March 4, 2019
Hello world!
If you thought derby weekend ended when the final whistle blew at Goodison Park yesterday you are gravely mistaken. Perhaps they saved the best until last, with a Steel City Derby of massive importance and extensive all-round interest. Sheffield United will go second if they win, and while Wednesday are a massive 17 points further back they are a side transformed under Steve Bruce, and share United’s record of having lost but a single league game in 2019 (and that was way back on 12 January; United’s defeat was a week later). If they win tonight they will go level on points with another of Bruce’s former clubs, Birmingham, in eighth (though unless it’s a real thrashing they will themselves be 11th, for goal-differential reasons) and the play-offs will start to look like a genuine possibility.
“The whole of the country will be watching the Sheffield game so let’s make it a spectacle,” roared Bruce.
“Both sets of supporters want their team to go hell for leather into the game and we won’t change our attitude,” screamed Chris Wilder, the Blades’ manager.
Yes, please. I’ll have some of that.
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