‘Wound up’ Sheffield United credit Middlesbrough for providing promotion motivation

Paul Heckingbottom admitted Sheffield United used the promotion challenge of Middlesbrough as “motivation” to seal their place in the Premier League next season, after appearing to suggest his side were “wound up” by the Teessiders.

Boro, for what seemed like large stages of the promotion run-in, were seen as United’s biggest challengers for second place and at one stage, half-time in United’s trip to Norwich and Boro’s clash with relegation-threatened Huddersfield Town, Michael Carrick’s side were a single point behind the second-placed Blades.

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But United, level at the break, ended up winning that game while Boro capitulated to lose 4-2, and United ended the season a whopping 16 points ahead of Boro, who finished fourth and lost their play-off semi-final over two legs to Coventry City.

Ollie Norwood, the United midfielder, has since suggested that Boro thought they had automatic promotion sewn up after victory at Bramall Lane back in February injected fresh impetus into their bid to hunt down the Blades. “The noise they were making in the tunnel probably lit the fire in us to say: ‘No, that’s not happening’,” Norwood said.

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And Heckingbottom, while stopping short of levelling similar claims at Boro, admitted an unspecified aspect of the Teessiders’ approach “wound us up”.

“We used it,” the United boss added. “Disrespectful is the wrong word, but we used it as motivation. We knew what we were doing and I couldn’t be prouder of how hard everyone has worked. We came through all that.

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“We had the injuries and things go wrong off the pitch, we had the embargo and it didn’t stop us. When people talk us up and say we’ve got this and got that, they had no idea what we had.

“What we have got is good players and staff and a willingness to give everything to try and go up. Most of the challenges were invented from the outside. Our challenges were different. People just didn’t know about them.”

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