Jay McEveley, the Sheffield United captain, believes that his side’s performance in beating Swindon Town bore the hallmarks of a side capable of mounting a serious promotion charge this season.
Confronting a side who had enjoyed an unbeaten start to the Sky Bet League One campaign, Nigel Adkins’s improving team secured victory through second-half goals from Neill Collins and Billy Sharp to move up to second place in the table.
It was far from a comfortable win for the visiting team, who had to soak up plenty of home possession, but by the final whistle United had banished the memories of their previous visit to the County Ground in May, when they were knocked out of the play-offs after a remarkable 5-5 second-leg draw.
For McEveley, the roots of the visiting team’s triumphs lay in Adkins’s success in making his players more adapatable. “We want to go up and displays like this can only stand us in good stead,” the United captain said. “I don’t really like comparing, but with the new management team and new players, each game is different. Each game there’s a different philosophy and plan about what we are going to do. You’ve got to give Swindon respect, but we executed it perfectly out there, I thought.
“You’ve got to be like that, to be able to change things. The coaching staff are great at coming up with different shapes and different ways of playing depending upon the circumstances. The manager has a great track record of getting teams up out of this league, so he clearly knows what he’s doing. That’s one reason why we’ve all really bought into it.
Advertisement
“The defending starts from the front. The work Conor [Sammon] and Billy put in especially is something else. It goes unseen, I think, a lot of the time, the shifts they and the two wide players put in. Che [Adams] has probably done more running in one game than he’s done in his career. I keep screaming at him and I’m sure he probably thinks, ‘Just shut up, please’, but it’s only because I want him to stay on the case and working hard.”
Mark Cooper, the Swindon manager, who was missing Nathan Thompson, Brandon Ormonde-Ottewill, Jon Obika and Jermaine Hylton through injury and illness, named a youthful set of substitutes who between them have managed 277 fewer professional starts than McEveley alone.
Despite being down to the bare bones of his squad, Cooper was pleased with his side’s display. “I thought it was a very tactical game, especially the first half,” he said. “I thought we had the better of the first half and had a couple of half-chances. The worst result that should happen for us today should be 0-0,” he said. “We shouldn’t be losing that game and it comes down to pure concentration. Fair play to Sheffield United, you could see they came and waited for us to make a mistake. As well as we played in patches, we’ve probably only got 12 or 13 players to pick from at the minute.
“I went to watch Sheffield United the other night and they changed ten players to players who’d probably still finish in the play-offs in this league. That’s great for Sheffield United but we have four of our front-line players out and it really, really damages us.”
Swindon Town (4-3-3): L Vigouroux — K Stewart, R Branco, J Williams, J Turnbull — D Traore, Y Kasim, A Rodgers — N Byrne, M Smith (sub: M Storey, 67min), F Robert. Substitutes not used: T Belford, B Barry, J Brophy, L Marshall, E Iandolo, W Randall. Booked: Williams, Vigouroux, Branco.
Advertisement
Sheffield United (4-4-2): M Howard — K Freeman, N Collins, D Edgar, J McEveley — J Campbell-Ryce (sub: C Alcock, 88), C Basham, L Reed, C Adams (sub: M Woolford, 61) — C Sammon (sub: M Higdon, 90), B Sharp. Substitutes not used: G Long, K McFadzean, H McGahey, M McNulty. Booked: Collins.