Sheffield United maintained their hold on the second automatic promotion place in the Championship after Kieran Dowell’s first-half header extended West Brom’s increasingly unproductive home form.
Darren Moore’s team may have started the day as the division’s leading scorers, having secured eight wins from their last nine away games, but they have now not won at the Hawthorns since Boxing Day as they missed the chance to overtake their promotion rivals.
It was a fitting indictment on their lack of cutting edge against the Blades that the nearest they came to scoring arrived in the 84th minute, when Jay Rodriguez steered Mason Holgate’s cross into the net with the use of his hand. The forward quickly acknowledged the ensuing yellow card as Chris Wilder’s superbly organised team ensured they suffered no repeat of their recent late collapse, when Aston Villa came back to draw from 3-0 down. One was enough here.
The Sheffield United manager was, as ever, staying grounded. “Our season is not done and dusted because we’ve won here and it wouldn’t have been done and dusted if we’d lost,” he said.
Nor was Wilder entirely satisfied with the quality of his team’s performance. “The positives were the way we stopped good players playing,” he added. “I didn’t think after we broke it up we controlled the game as much as we should have done. But we’re delighted we’ve won a tight game. [We were] not our best with the ball but at our very best without it.”
Top spot had moved beyond either team’s reach after Norwich and Leeds had survived challenging games earlier on but there was still a thrill in the air as two strong sides set about each other. West Brom were coming in to the game after doing what they do best – winning away, at QPR and Aston Villa – before succumbing to what they do worst: conceding at home.
Despite their sustained promotion challenge, Moore’s side have kept only two clean sheets at the Hawthorns in this exciting season; the most hospitable record in the division.
So it was no great surprise when United took the lead in the 14th minute. The expansive nature of their wing-back system was reflected in the manner that Martin Cranie, ostensibly the right central defender, overlapped his own wing-back and even though Kieron Freeman’s pass looked to have been overhit, the veteran kept going and managed to scoop his cross back towards the near post. There Dowell, on loan from Everton, rose strongly to send a looping header over Sam Johnstone into the far top corner.
“I thought he [had] put too much pace on the pass,” Wilder admitted of Freeman’s ball to the byline. “The old man has stretched for it and put a good ball into the box.”
West Brom, without a home win in their past five games, appeared somewhat edgy in their approach play initially and barely had a shot on target to speak of, United’s keeper, Dean Henderson, saving at Jefferson Montero’s feet in stoppage time.
When they did dominate in the second half, Albion, trying to pick their way forwards narrowly, were unable to get penetration in wide areas. “I put that down to teams coming here and putting men behind the ball and not wanting to play open football,” Moore said. He admitted he may have to look at changing formation at home and is relishing a couple of midweeks without games to get back out on the training pitch.
Both teams now approach tough fixtures: West Brom go to Leeds on Friday, while United visit Hillsborough in the derby three nights later. It promises to be a tight run-in as the Championship maintains its spell.