Sheffield United

Bristol City host Sheffield United at Ashton Gate in the Championship play-off semi-final first leg on Thursday evening (20:00 BST).

The Robins have won just one of their past five games (D2 L2) on the way to finishing sixth, while the Blades - who finished third - have only won two of their past seven (D1 L4).

United have failed to win promotion via the play-offs on nine previous occasions since the format began in the late 1980s.

• Bristol City are winless across their past seven games against Sheffield United in all competitions (D2 L5), since a 3-2 victory at Bramall Lane in the Championship in March 2019.

• Sheffield United have won five of their past seven league trips to Ashton Gate (D1 L1), with each of their previous three victories via a one-goal margin.

• Bristol City are unbeaten across their past eight home league games (W6 D2), their longest run at Ashton Gate in a single season since a nine-match stint between January and April 2023. In the 2024-25 Championship season, only Leeds United (58), Burnley (51) and Sheffield United (49) accumulated more points on home soil than the Robins (46 – W13 D7 L3).

• Sheffield United will be competing in the play-offs in the second tier for the sixth time, failing to earn promotion on each of the previous five occasions. In that time, they've won just one of their five away semi-final legs (D3 L1), though it did come in their most recent such tie – a 2-1 win over Nottingham Forest at the City Ground in May 2022, before being eliminated on penalties.

• Bristol City will be playing in their sixth EFL play-off campaign this season and their first since 2007-08 in the Championship. On that occasion, the Robins reached Wembley but lost 1-0 to Hull City; they've never earned promotion via the play-offs on any of the previous five occasions.

• This season, Sheffield United became just the third side in the history of the second tier to win as many as 90 points yet still fail to get automatically promoted, after only Sunderland in 1997-98 and Leeds United last season.

• Only four Championship players this season have created more chances than Bristol City's Max Bird (75), who also ranks fifth for expected assists (8.65).

• In the Championship this season, only Burnley's James Trafford (29) recorded more clean sheets among goalkeepers than Sheffield United's Michael Cooper (21).

Adam Oxley
BBC Radio Sheffield journalist

Image source, Getty Images

25 April 1925 is a key date in Sheffield United's history.

It was the last time the Blades won at Wembley, as they beat Cardiff City 1-0 to lift the FA Cup for the fourth time – the last major honour won by the club.

Well United are potentially two games away from another return to the national stadium, this time in the Championship play-offs.

It will be the 10th time the Blades have contested the end-of-season play-offs, since they began in the late 1980s.

United have never won. They've made four finals – two at the new Wembley in 2009 and 2012, one at the Millennium Stadium in 2003 and one at the old Wembley in 1997 – and they've lost four finals, without scoring.

So could the stars be aligning to end the Blades' 100-year wait for a Wembley win with a first play-off success in 10 attempts?

An immediate return to the Premier League, in these circumstances, would certainly be a headline-writers dream.

But Sheffield United shouldn't need to rely on fate for success this month.

Chris Wilder's latest team of star players aligned this season to comfortably finish third in the Championship.

The Blades accumulated 16 more points than Sunderland in fourth and they took 24 more points than Bristol City in sixth – their opponents in the play-off semi-finals.

In fact the gap from the play-off places to Cardiff at the bottom of the final table is the same as the difference between United in third and the Robins.

It's right to say those statistics are now consigned to history, with four teams having an equal chance of promotion, but the 46-game season should show that the play-offs are United's for the taking.

They have the Championship's player of the season in Gus Hamer, they now have a squad fit enough to provide nine first-team options from the bench – something that hasn't been possible for most of the season - and crucially, they have Chris Wilder.

Not only does the Blades boss bleed red-and-white as a boyhood supporter, but he's a play-off winner with Oxford United, and this is his first opportunity to break Sheffield United's play-off hoodoo.

Anything can happen in the play-offs, history has taught us this, and Wilder won't let his players take anything for granted against three good sides who have all taken points off the Blades this campaign.

But history also shows us that more often than not, the team who finishes third in the Championship, does get promoted via the playoffs. Nine times in the past 20 seasons, this has been the case.

Blades supporters, young and old, have every right to go into the play-offs with more than a hint of trepidation given past failures, but they, and their team, need to stick their chests out and show why Sheffield United are the third best team in the division.

Image source, Rex Features

Sheffield United boss Chris Wilder told BBC Radio Sheffield he was incredibly proud of his side for reaching the 90-point barrier, following the Blades' 1-1 draw against Blackburn Rovers:

"I thought the performance was a good performance. We knew it was an awkward one with Blackburn Rovers having something to play for so their approach would be on the front foot.

"Second half we were really positive when we went behind. I believe we deserved to win the game but the attitude, the approach to the game was great.

"The overall thing for me is two points per game. It's an incredible achievement in my opinion with the challenges we've had to overcome. The players have given everything for the shirt."

Wilder also stated his concern about the injury suffered to right-back Femi Seriki, which forced his side to play the final stages of the match with 10 men.

"He's off to hospital so that's the disappointing aspect of today but we can't complain, our injury record has been absolutely outstanding," Wilder added.

Blackburn Rovers make the trip to Sheffield United on Saturday (12:30 BST) in a last-ditch attempt to make the play-offs.

Rovers will need to win to have a shot at the top six, as well as bank on at least two of the three teams above them - Bristol City, Coventry City and Millwall - faltering.

If they succeed, they will have also beaten a potential play-off opponent in Sheffield United, who will play the team that finishes sixth in the semi-finals.

Though this game may not have a lot riding on it for the Blades, boss Chris Wilder will want his team to get up to speed for the cut-throat play-offs awaiting them.

• Sheffield United have won five of their last seven league games against Blackburn Rovers (L2), keeping a clean sheet in all five of those victories.

• Blackburn Rovers are winless across their last six away league games against Sheffield United since a 2-1 victory in January 1994 (D1 L5), failing to score in each of their last five visits to Bramall Lane.

• Sheffield United are unbeaten across their last four final league games of a Championship season (W3 D1), scoring 2+ goals in each of those matches.

• This will be the third time that Blackburn have finished a league campaign by facing Sheffield United, beating the Blades 4-0 at home in 1920 before the pair drew 0-0 at Bramall Lane in 1939.

• Newly-crowned Championship player of the season Gustavo Hamer has netted nine goals for Sheffield United in 2024-25, while since the start of the 2022-23 campaign, only nine players have recorded more goal contributions than the Dutchman (38 – 20 goals, 18 assists), despite him spending the 2023-24 season in the top flight.

Image source, Rex Features

Sheffield United left-back Sam McCallum says it is imperative his side go into the Championship play-offs in good form after they missed out on automatic promotion.

The 24-year-old scored the opening goal in the Blades' 2-0 victory at Stoke City on Friday, which ended a run of three consecutive league defeats on the road.

"The momentum going into the play-offs is key," McCallum told BBC Radio Sheffield.

"I think if we can get three points from the next game [Blackburn at home] then there's a good feeling in the dressing room that we can go all the way to Wembley and win.

"It [Sheffield United] is a good place. There's obviously no pressure on us at the moment.

"We've secured [the] play-offs so I think it's now all about the boys playing with freedom, creating goals and enjoying the memories."

Image source, Rex Features

Sheffield United boss Chris Wilder was delighted with his side's showing in their 2-0 win at Stoke City.

The Blades had seen their automatic Premier League promotion hopes ended on Monday by a fourth defeat in five games at Burnley, who went up alongside Leeds.

United are guaranteed a third-placed finish and will now look to end their long wait for success via the play-offs, having failed in all nine of their previous attempts.

"The energy of the group since Monday night has been outstanding and I thought the energy of the supporters was amazing tonight. They gave us a push and I thank every one of them for that," Wilder told BBC Radio Sheffield.

"We wanted to get back to being a winning football club. The attitude from when they came back for the first day of pre-season is we want to win. You have to have that.

"I think a lot of people would be thinking we'd be taking it easy and taking our foot off the gas, you can't do that. You can't just turn it on and off, you get hurt when you do that so it was important we went full tilt.

"It was a physical game, I thought there were some big challenges out there, and we never took a backwards step all night and got the result we wanted."

Adam Oxley
BBC Radio Sheffield journalist

Image source, Rex Features

Love him or loathe him, football would be boring without people like Chris Wilder.

"I'm a big boy; you give it, you take it," was Wilder's response this week to a video on social media of Leeds United striker Patrick Bamford starting a chant about the Sheffield United manager, as their Yorkshire rivals celebrated promotion to the Premier League.

Pre-match, on the touchline, post-match or dancing and singing on a pub table, you never quite know what to expect from the Blades boss.

Barely a day goes by at the minute without a new soundbite, video, meme or AI-generated image featuring Wilder, whether that's from his own fans or rival supporters.

He's always been outspoken and opinion-splitting, whichever club he's managed, but add his boyhood love of Sheffield United, his journey from Sunday league to non-league to the Premier League, his history with the Blades as a player and multi-promotion winning boss, and you get a fascinating, box-office character in modern football.

Too often players, managers and executives reel off a string of clichés and bland statements, fearful of their words being taken the wrong way while trying to appease everyone. It can work, as some teams go under the radar and achieve success away from the limelight.

But football is about stories, moments and memories, winning and losing, and as everyone knows, every good story usually has a hero and a villain. And Wilder plays both roles, brilliantly.

Does he occasionally let his emotions get the better of him? Does he go too far with some of the things he says? You can argue he does, on both counts. But should he change his approach? Absolutely not, in my opinion.

Easter Monday's narrow defeat at Burnley brought an end to Sheffield United's hopes of automatic promotion to the top flight and confirmed a third-place finish in the Championship, and a place in the play-offs.

It was Wilder's 300th game in charge of his football club, across two spells, and the loss at Turf Moor now gives the Blades boss a chance to write another new chapter in his ongoing saga at the United helm.

It's a chance to end the club's long wait for play-off success, with nine failed attempts stretching back to the late 1980s. What a chapter that could be.

Chris Wilder has already started to set his stall in his interviews on changing the Blades' play-off narrative, and you can guarantee what he says, how he says it and what he does in the next few weeks, will elevate the drama and the intrigue, both in Sheffield and across the country.

You can hear from Wilder himself in the latest edition of BBC Radio Sheffield's Blades Heaven podcast here.

Play-off bound Sheffield United make the trip to Stoke City on Friday (20:00 BST) as they look to build momentum going into May's knock-out rounds.

The Blades missed out on automatic promotion after losing to Burnley on Saturday, taking both the Clarets and Leeds United out of reach to battle amongst themselves for the title.

Though, while United have more work to do if they are to leave the Championship, Stoke's efforts will be focused on staying in the second tier.

The Potters' 6-0 humbling against Leeds ended their unbeaten run of five league games and kept them in danger of relegation, just four points clear with only two games left to go.

• Stoke City have lost their last two league meetings with Sheffield United, but have won their last two against them on home soil (1-0 in April 2022 and 3-1 in October 2022).

• Having won this season's reverse fixture (2-0), Sheffield United could do the league double over Stoke City for the first time since the 1996-97 campaign.

• Stoke City have won three of their last four home league matches (L1), as many victories as they managed in their previous 14 on home soil in the Championship (W3 D8 L3).

• Sheffield United have lost four of their five league games in April (L1); their most in a single month in the Championship since December 2017 (also 4).

• Sheffield United midfielder Sydie Peck has had more shots without scoring than any other player in the Championship this season (35).

Image source, PA Media

Sheffield United boss Chris Wilder says they cannot allow morale to drop too low after missing out on automatic promotion to the Premier League.

Monday's 2-1 defeat at Burnley means the Blades will finish third in the Championship regardless of what happens in their final two regular season games and will go into the play-offs.

"We can't start feeling sorry for ourselves, I don't think people expect me to and the coaches and players," Wilder told BBC Radio Sheffield.

"We've got to raise ourselves, dust ourselves down and go again. We haven't disgraced ourselves, we haven't let ourselves down.

"Hopefully the majority of the supporters will see that and back us in the play-off games and if we get the better of four 45-minute halves, we have a trip to Wembley."

The Blades have notoriously struggled in the play-offs, failing to ever go up in eight previous attempts via that route in the EFL - five times in the Championship and three in League One.

But Wilder says he "doesn't subscribe to the play-off nonsense" or believe their poor record will have any impact.

"They will win play-off games and they will win a play-off final," he said.

"We've got to deal with the play-offs. We'll end up being 20-odd points clear of those teams that get in the play-offs, but we all know what the play-offs are like.

"The slate gets wiped clean and we have to go and prove ourselves but there's enough about us in that changing room to go and do that."

United have suffered four defeats in their past five games and Wilder has blamed the run of three losses at the start of April for missing out on a top two finish.

"The season didn't end here [at Burnley], it ended when we didn't put the form at Oxford to bed. You can't go and get beaten at Plymouth. Those are the games that have cost us."

Listen to Chris Wilder's full interview on BBC Sounds.

Image source, Getty Images

Chris Wilder said that his Sheffield United team have done well to finish third behind promoted Leeds United and Burnley in an "insane season".

The Blades boss told BBC Radio Sheffield: "For those two teams to have the ability to hit 100 points shows what the division is like, and we're the third best team in the division.

"The season went to the 44th game and we had a right go, and created some good chances. We conceded two poor goals - we have to do better on the clearance and the penalty hands the initiative back to them.

"We would have needed 95, 96, 97 points to go up. It's an insane season.

"There will be some big games now. The home game [of the play-offs] at Bramall Lane will be off the scale. We've got to dust ourselves down and go again and we will do that.

"We want to go and get 90-odd points, that's the target."

Image source, Rex Features

Sheffield United are "alive and kicking" according to manager Chris Wilder after getting back to winning ways.

The 2-0 success over Cardiff City ended a run of three successive defeats, which saw the Blades fall from first to third in the Championship.

They are now outsiders in the battle for the two automatic promotion spots given they are five points behind Leeds United and Burnley with only three games left.

And they must avoid defeat away to the Clarets on Monday (17:30 BST) to keep their hopes alive.

But for Wilder, the taste of victory was much needed after those three losses in eight days.

"We had to take care of business from our point of view, a really emotionally draining week for everybody, the players and the supporters," he said.

"I have got to say, I thought the supporters were outstanding in trying to raise us and give us energy.

"In my experience as a player, a coach or manager, I have had little periods where you lose games and sometimes the hardest thing is getting that first one over the line. We have done that.

"We needed a performance. The performance was OK and the result is a big result obviously which keeps us alive and kicking."

Sheffield United's blip could not have come at a worse time.

Three defeats in a row when you need to be increasing the momentum not seeing it disappear.

It's left Chris Wilder scratching his head - and around - for a way to rescue the Blades' hopes of automatic promotion.

They may not find Cardiff in charitable mood either with their Championship status still very much in peril and keen to bounce back from defeat by Stoke and return to the toughness that saw them go four games unbeaten prior to that setback.

Sheffield United have won their last five league games against Cardiff, their best ever winning run against the Bluebirds.

• Cardiff are winless in their past three league visits to Bramall Lane (D1 L2) since registering a 2-0 victory in April 2011 under Dave Jones.

• Sheffield United have won eight of their past 10 league games on Good Friday (D1 L1), keeping seven clean sheets in that time.

• Cardiff have lost eight of their past 11 league games on Good Friday (W3), though did win their last away game against Blackpool in 2023 (3-1).

• Sheffield United have lost each of their past three league games, as many as in their previous 16 matches (W11 D2), not since April 2011 have the Blades lost four successive Championship league games.