Blades v Millwall Review

A 7:45pm kick-off saw Sheffield United face Millwall under the lights, with the Blades coming into this game on the back of a 2-1 win over Stoke, and Millwall coming into it after a 2-0 loss to Luton at home. With both teams sat on 15 points before the game, in 10th and 11th respectively.

With both teams having similar seasons in the leadup to this game, the game could have gone either way, however on the night it was clear that Millwall were much the better side.

Saturday saw the Blades beat Stoke after falling behind, which left many blades fans in belief that gaining some momentum might be possible, however this wasn’t the case, clearly shown by a very slow start for the blades.

Just four minutes into the game, and a Millwall attack down the left ended up in the net, however the Blades were let off when the flag was put up for offside. You’d think this would have served as a wake-up call; however, this simply wasn’t the case and just 7 minutes later, in the 11th minute, a Jed Wallace ‘cross’ found the back of the net after Robin Olsen somehow failed to save it.

This paved the way for Millwall to keep the forward momentum, with the Blades looking a whole different team from Saturday, and Millwall looking dominant. With the game fully going in Millwall’s favour, some lash tackles were made, one coming from Wolves loanee Morgan Gibbs-White, leading to a yellow that would later become a red.

The end of the first half, and the Blades were awarded a penalty for a foul on John Fleck, with captain Billy Sharp stepping up to make it 1-1.

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Then came out the teams for the second half, and United looked like a much sharper team, looking to bring the game to Millwall more and press, however a soft dive from Gibbs-White saw him dismissed for simulation. This proved costly, as the blades seemed to look, once again, depleted.

One of the key talking points about this game, was the referee, who seemed to make far too many errors, one of these being Millwall player Saville not being awarded a second yellow, to which the Sheffield United manager Slaviša Jokanović stated “his [referee] interpretation is not correct.”

With the game going into the dying minutes of the game at 1-1, sloppy defending from the Blades allowed Millwall defender Jake Cooper to fire a shot from long-range beating Olsen once again.

with the Blades struggling to create any momentum, the chances of climbing up the table seem unlikely once again. As for Millwall they now have won 3 of their last 4 games and will be looking to keep the momentum up going into Saturday’s game against Stoke.

As for the Blades, they take on Barnsley in a South Yorkshire derby away, however without the creativeness of Morgan Gibbs-White, they will need to find an alternative way to battle their way past Barnsley who are winless in 10.