Three years on, and Kim Hellberg’s Boro side served up another statement performance at Bramall Lane. This time, however, they are trying cement a place in the top two rather than playing catch-up. Keep performing like this, and whereas Carrick’s team missed out, Hellberg’s will be playing in the Premier League next season.
While their promotion rivals wobble, Boro march on, playing with a style and swagger that makes them thrilling to watch, but all-but-impossible to contain.
Their latest success made it six wins in a row, a sequence that has featured 16 goals scored and just four conceded, and enabled them to leapfrog Coventry City and move to the top of the table for the first time since mid-October. “We’re going to win the league,” sang the Boro fans in a sold-out away end. You know what? They might just be right.
The Teessiders certainly looked like promotion winners in waiting as they swarmed all over Chris Wilder’s Sheffield United side, attacking with pace and purpose from start to finish, committing players forward at every opportunity and constructing neat, one-touch passing moves that must have had Hellberg purring.
Tommy Conway opened the scoring with a clinical low finish in the 19th minute, before Riley McGree, whose return from injury has added another string to Boro’s attacking bow, headed home a second just before the break.
Both goalscorers had an excellent game, but it was one of those nights when it was hard to single out individual performances, such was the strength of Boro’s all-round display against a Blades side who ended with ten men when Joe Rothwell was sent off with ten minutes remaining.
The game was wide open from the outset, with both sides creating a flurry of chances inside the opening quarter-of-an-hour.
The best of them fell to Boro, but while Hayden Hackney rolled Conway into the left of the penalty area after a slick break that also involved good work from Morgan Whittaker, the striker sliced a poor effort wide of the target when he should really have angled a driven strike across the goalkeeper. Crucially, he was to learn from his mistake.
Michael Cooper did make early saves from headed efforts from Whittaker and Adilson Malanda, but Sheffield United also had their own bright moments as they started with pace and purpose.
Sol Brynn parried away a decent effort from Gustavo Hamer, who had been Boro’s nemesis while playing for Coventry in a play-off semi-final under Carrick, before Malanda got himself in the way of a goal-bound effort from Andre Brooks.
The frenetic end-to-end nature of the game meant an opening goal felt inevitable from the opening minute, and it duly arrived before the midway point of the first half.
It went Boro’s way, and came at the end of a slick passing move that saw Whittaker guide Luke Ayling’s pass to McGree, who in turn moved the ball on to Conway. The Scot drove into the 18-yard box, and having failed to hit the target with his earlier opportunity, he wasn’t going to make the same mistake again. A clinical low drive saw the ball flash across Cooper and nestle in the bottom corner, handing Conway a fourth goal in the last four games. So much for Boro lacking a natural number nine.
The Teessiders’ attacking play was smooth and incisive, picking holes in the Sheffield United defence. The Blades remained a threat themselves though, and after former Boro striker Patrick Bamford flashed a shot just wide of the post, Brynn flung himself to his left to turn Hamer’s back-post shot around the upright.
The visitors remained the side doing most of the pressing, however, and their positive, front-foot approach was rewarded with a second goal on the stroke of half-time.
Hackney barged his way into a shooting position, and while his 20-yard effort thudded against the left-hand post, McGree was following up. The Australian reacted quickest as the ball rebounded towards him, directing a deft header past Cooper.
Boro continued to push forward in their second half, but their night became more difficult when Sheffield United halved their deficit with 17 minutes left. Bamford made a great run behind Malanda and fired a clinical low finish across Brynn and into the bottom corner.
However, the Blades’ hopes of a successful comeback were effectively ended in the 80th minute when Rothwell received a justified straight red card for an awful challenge on Alan Browne.