Chris Wilder pleased Sheffield United ‘showed that top mentality’ against Oxford

Sheffield United manager Chris Wilder praised his side’s mentality after they moved to the top of the Championship with a 3-0 win at home to Oxford.

Goals from Callum O’Hare, Tyrese Campbell and Jesurun Rak-Sakyi helped the Blades secure a fifth victory in six games.

Wilder said: “The game’s got to be won. We have to show a top mentality. We made it a comfortable evening by being clinical when we had to be and showing that mentality.

“It’s a tough league, they had a tough afternoon on Saturday and coming up the road and a few of the injuries that they’ve got, but it’s important that we showed that top mentality, which we did.

“They were never out the game, they’re dangerous opponents. They’ve got players that can hurt you and find a goal and if they do find that goal then it becomes a difficult evening, but we controlled it.

“Even late on where ‘Coops’ (Michael Cooper) has made a save and ‘Robbo’ (Jack Robinson) has got across his man and made a tremendous block. The attitude to keep clean sheets and the attitude to defend properly was important and we showed that tonight.

“Some games look after themselves, our previous home game looked after itself. There will be games in the second part of the season that look after themselves.

“We’re coming off a Saturday to a Tuesday to a Friday night yet again and you know I look at everybody else’s fixtures and maybe there’s only another one or two that have the short turnaround that we’re having to deal with. It’s not ideal for Sunderland, not ideal for us, but we will get on with it.”

Oxford boss Des Buckingham was pleased with his side’s start before they succumbed to the pressure they faced.

He said: “It’s a tough place to come, a team at the top of the table. I thought we gave a good account of ourselves for the first 30 minutes until we gave away a throw-in, a goal.

“I think when you come to a place where teams haven’t scored, I think, in nine hours, they don’t give up goals lightly, so you don’t have to go and chase the game.

“But we’ve reverted back to the shape that we’re comfortable in and we’ve done as much as we could to try and prevent them.

“Their ambition, I’m sure, as a club this year, is to go up. Ours is to make sure we stay up and we need to make sure again as we bring our players back and we revert back to what we’re good at, that we get ourselves right now for what’s coming in the next month.

“The reality is we haven’t had the squad available to us for the last six, eight, nine, 10 weeks.”