Manager Chris Wilder has declared that Sheffield United are now out of Sheffield Wednesday’s shadow following the thumping derby win on Sunday afternoon.
Heading to Hillsborough for the first tie in over five years, United took advantage in the third minute as John Fleck found the net and Leon Clarke doubled our advantage on the 15 minute mark. Wednesday hit back in first half stoppage time before finding a leveller with 25 minutes left to play, but Mark Duffy and a second from Clarke secured us all three points in a four two win.
Speaking to Sky Sports as he met with the media following the full time whistle a proud and delighted Wilder felt victory was ‘fully deserved’ and he was delighted to go into the record books as it was the first time we’ve scored four at Hillsborough.
‘I’m so proud of the players and the supporters. It was an outstanding effort and fully deserved in my opinion. We have had to wait a long time as a football club and there have been some ups and downs for the club since its existence, but this is a great one. We get rammed down our throat about ‘coming out of a pub league’ and ‘always in our shadow’; well I don’t think we were in their shadow today.’
Wilder went on to say.
‘We stepped out and played some outstanding football, defended when we had to, won headers, won tackles, won races, and opened them up. It was them at the end smashing it forward trying to get a result and I thought we were outstanding in every department.’
United move into fourth place in the Championship table following the win and it shows just how well the side have continued last year’s League One momentum through and Wilder felt we could’ve been out of sight at the half time break had we been more clinical.
‘I didn’t think they deserved to be in the game at half-time. Last year they were in the play-offs, year before play-off final, they have an array of superstars and talent, but my boys pushed that out the way and we said we would go for it. We took a centre-half off and put a winger on and we went for it. We said before the game we would do it and I am delighted for everybody connected to the club to get a massive result.’
