"Steely" Sheffield United get big weight off their shoulders as Luton Town win ignites fresh survival confidence

Chris Wilder agreed that Sheffield United's first away league win of the season had been "a long time coming" after they got that particular weight off their shoulders at Luton Town this afternoon. The Blades beat Luton 3-1 to cut the gap between themselves and the fourth-bottom Hatters to seven points.

More importantly it restored a bit of pride and answered a few questions about the players' characters after last weekend's 5-0 hammering at home to Aston Villa. Vini Souza capped a man-of-the-match display with the third goal, after Cameron Archer and James McAtee (pen) had earlier got on the scoresheet, and Wilder admitted: "It's been a long time coming, it shouldn't be February.

"The club have come close on quite a number of occasions before me and even in our time - the Villa [away] game comes to mind. It's been a difficult week and I don't think they would have expected it to be any different in terms of the message and the attitude.

"It's going to be there for a while, that [5-0] result/performance and the whole feel of it so hopefully we can use that. There's no hiding place, I have to own it. What do you do? You work a little bit harder, tune in a little bit more to your week's work.

"You deliver a bit more in training sessions, which they have done right the way through the week, and I believe sometimes you feel it as a manager. A steely attitude and desire to go a little way to putting what went wrong last week right."