Blades hopeful of continued good form

LONDON • Sheffield United manager Chris Wilder hopes his side's pre-lockdown momentum carries over when they visit Aston Villa today for their first Premier League match in three months.

Three wins in their last four league games had pushed the Blades into unlikely contention for a top-four spot before the coronavirus pandemic shut down the season in March.

Victory at struggling Villa would lift Wilder's side above Manchester United into fifth spot, two points behind fourth-placed Chelsea (48), with nine games remaining.

That would be a meteoric rise for the Blades, who three seasons ago were playing in the second division and have never qualified for Europe before.

Wilder knows that will require his players to hit the ground running after an unprecedented pause.

"(The hiatus) will have helped some clubs," he told reporters in a virtual press conference ahead of the match at Villa Park.

"I'm not going to spin this around, we were on a good run.

"I'm as intrigued and as hopeful as anyone that we can restart in the manner we left off, but we won't know until we get rolling. We are ready to go."

On the likelihood of a massive live TV audience for the Premier League's first game of its restart, with fans starved of English football for months, he said: "First game back is going to be a little bit different.

"From our point of view, we want to put on a good show and make sure we play well.

"Players will naturally want to play well and we want to do that as a football club."

REUTERS

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ASTON VILLA V SHEFFIELD UNITED

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