From a midweek night under the lights to an early lunchtime kick off at the MKM on Saturday, the EFL continues to throw a multiple amount of kick off times at us as we greet Sheffield Utd on what is week 9 of the Championship season.

Mixed fortunes for City with a collection of wins losses and draws, one of which was a hard fought and well deserved point against The Lilywhites on Tuesday night but a tale of woe for The Blades who arrive with just a single win and 3 points to their name when they take to the field at 12:30 this weekend licking their wounds from a Saints victory.

City has a good history with Sheff Utd, not just for being a local Yorkshire rival but also in the nature of hard fought games through the years and most notably the 5-3 win for The Tigers at Wembley in front of 71,000 fans for the FA Cup Semi Final. 2-1 down at half time to come back victorious.

Since then our fortunes against them haven't been great having lost 7 games, drawing 1 and winning just 3, the last of which was an away win under manager Ruben Selles taking 3 points with a scoreline of 3-0 back in January. However, the Blades last visit to the MKM saw them grab a 2-0 win and all 3 points in front of 22,000 unhappy City fans and our 6th consecutive game without a win under Tim Walter at the beginning of last season.

So the scene is set, City on the bounce-back and Blunts desperate to recover from freefall which continued on Tuesday for them at Bramall Lane against Southampton who beat them 2-1 under new manager Christ Wilder for the second time around in that post, who put in the best shot of the game, hoofing a rocket into his home fans' crowd after the half time whistle which resulted in a Red Card and the closest that Bramall Lane has seen of a header since the start of the season when a fan took the ball full force to the noggin.

Wilder, despite being relegated to the bleachers at the MKM due to a touchline ban is still in an upbeat mood saying that there was plenty of positives to take away from the defeat and insists that "we'll get there" as his new tenureship of the dressing room is still work in progress which he hopes will bare fruit when takes on Sergej's Tigers on Saturday.

For us, the come back kings of the last day of September, there's no doubt that two players will want to remind Sheff Utd that they won't have it all their own way. One Oli McBurnie who spent 5 years at Sheff Utd and played 146 games and Regan Slater who was let go by Utd after just 1 game for them and a 3 year loan spell including a season at Hull City that became permanent in 2022 for his nickname price of "50 Grand".

Oli, as we know has 6 goals and 4 assists from his 8 games at City and hopefully the machine will keep rolling that will be all the more likely if Giles is the natural choice for selection and the player with the most assists (5) in all four divisions, he's hot property and no doubt January will be the month we hear his name linked with other clubs a lot if he carries on delivering.

The first half of the PNE game we massively missed Crooks IMO and was one of the scorers in our last 3-0 victory over Sheffield Utd and wonder how far off he is from a return? One returning player needs no mention but I will anyway and that's in the Canadian form of Liam Millar who burst back onto the scene with style and flair for the last 45 minutes against Preston and made a positive contribution all round but is he yet fit enough for a full 90? I'm not sure and wouldn't want to risk it as Belloumi fell foul of a full impact return and maybe came back too hard from such a long lay off but we'll see and the more games we play the more confident I am in Jakirovic making the right calls.

Given this is Sergej's first season in English football, like anyone new to anything he's finding his feet and yes, has made some errors of judgment. BUT. The positive is that he acknowledges what's gone or going wrong and has a solution or at least a plan B and is able effect our game which will come in very useful against the likes of Wilder who took Sheff Utd to within minutes of the Premiership last season and is well versed in knowing how to get the best out of a team once get gets his feet under the table of a club.

This game is going to be a nailbiter and I fancy a 1 - 0 win for City thanks to our torch carrier McBurnie leading the line nicking the winner and hopefully our defence will have had a good long talk with itself and Pandur doesn't make any silly passes to the opponent as he did for PNE's second goal that was nothing more that a Gift from Ivor.

I'm going with.

Pandur.
Coyle. Egan. Hughes. Giles.
Gelhardt. Slater. Lundstram. Brown / Millar (45 each)
Mc Burnie. Destan.

UTT.