[themaclad]

Sheffield United v Preston North End

Bramall Lane KO 15.00 29/4/2023

Last time Out



FORM GUIDE

BLADES 12 PNE 11

Promotion achieved last night, congratulations to the Blades

Culture

Def Leppard are an English rock band formed in 1976 in Sheffield. Since 1992, the band has consisted of Rick Savage (bass, backing vocals), Joe Elliott (lead vocals), Rick Allen (drums), Phil Collen (guitar, backing vocals), and Vivian Campbell (guitar, backing vocals). They established themselves as part of the new wave of British heavy metal movement of the early 1980s.[1]

The band's greatest commercial success came between the early 1980s and the early 1990s. Their first album, 1980's On Through the Night, reached the Top 15 in the UK but received little notice elsewhere. Their second album, 1981's High 'n' Dry, was produced by Mutt Lange, who helped them begin to define their melodic hard rock style, and the album's most popular track "Bringin' On the Heartbreak" became one of the first rock videos played on MTV in 1982, but the album only reached the Top 30 and 40 in the UK and US. Def Leppard's next studio album, Pyromania, was released in January 1983, with "Photograph" and "Rock of Ages" both topping the US Rock Tracks chart and reaching the top 20 of the Hot 100. Reaching No. 2 on the US album chart, Pyromania was certified Diamond in the US and 7× platinum in Canada and reached the top 20 in the UK but did not sell much elsewhere.

Def Leppard's fourth album, the more pop-oriented Hysteria (1987), topped the UK, US, New Zealand, Canadian, Australian and Norway charts. It also went to No. 2 in Sweden and No. 10 in Germany without any Top 50 singles in those countries. It has been certified 12× platinum for sales in the US and 13× platinum in Canada, selling over 25 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time.[2] The album spawned six Top 20 US singles, including the US Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 "Love Bites" (went Top 10 in several other countries including No. 2 in NZ), alongside "Pour Some Sugar on Me" (US No. 2), "Hysteria", "Armageddon It" (No. 2 in NZ), "Animal" (at No. 6, the biggest UK hit), and "Rocket" (a Top 15 hit in many countries). Hysteria had four Top 10 hits in New Zealand.

Their next studio album, Adrenalize (their first following the death of guitarist Steve Clark), reached No. 1 on the UK, US, NZ, Canadian and Australian charts in 1992, while going Top 10 in Sweden and Germany. It contained several hits, including the US Rock Tracks chart-topper, "Let's Get Rocked", which became their biggest hit in several countries, including No. 2 in the UK, No. 3 in Canada and Switzerland, and the Top 20 in Sweden and Germany. The third single, "Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad", was a Top 15 song in the US, UK and Canada. Adrenalize went on to sell over eight million copies worldwide. Their 1993 album, Retro Active, contained the acoustic Top 5 North American hit "Two Steps Behind". Their greatest hits album Vault, released in 1995, featured the UK No. 2 hit "When Love & Hate Collide" and reached the Top 10 in several countries, going 5× platinum in the US. Beginning with Slang, Def Leppard released five albums between 1996 and 2008, with most usually reaching the Top 15 in several countries, including the UK, US and Canada. Their self-titled album was released in 2015 and reached the Top 10 in several countries. The band's newest studio album, Diamond Star Halos was released in May 2022 and reached the Top 10 in the US, the UK and Australia.

As one of the world's best-selling music artists, Def Leppard have sold more than 100 million records worldwide,[3] and have two albums with RIAA diamond certification: Pyromania and Hysteria,[4] making them one of only five rock bands with two original studio albums selling more than 10 million copies in the US.[5][6] The band were ranked No. 31 in VH1's "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock"[7] and ranked No. 70 in "100 Greatest Artists of All Time".[8] Def Leppard were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019.[9]

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In The Dressing Room


Robbie Brady is expected to miss out this weekend with a calf strain, which also left him out of Saturday’s game against Blackburn Rovers.

Other than that, it will be the same group of players available to Ryan Lowe, with Bambo Diaby serving the second match of his four-game suspension.

Patrick Bauer – after making his first start since December last weekend – will be looking to take his North End appearance tally to 100 at Bramall Lane.

A Look At Our Hosts


Sheffield United secured their automatic promotion to the top flight on Wednesday evening with a 2-0 victory at home to West Bromwich Albion.

The Blades, managed by Paul Heckingbottom, have spent pretty much the whole campaign in the top two spots of the division and they’ve coupled that success with reaching the FA Cup semi-finals.

With promotion already secured, changes may be made for this fixture, but there’s a huge amount of strength in the Blades’ squad, so whoever they field will pose a threat on the day.

Going Head To Head


Games played: 121
PNE wins: 36
Draws: 32
Sheffield United wins: 53
Last victory: Sheffield United 0-1 PNE, 28th April 2018

One To Watch


It’s always difficult to pick out just one key man from a team riding so high in the league table, but Iliman Ndiaye is hard to look past.

With 13 goals and nine assists to his name, the 23-year-old has proven to be one of the best attacking talents in the Championship this season, and he unsurprisingly has a reported long list of admirers.

Ndiaye, who played three times for Senegal at the Qatar World Cup – one of those being against England – opened the scoring at Deepdale in the reverse fixture earlier this season.

Match Officials

Stephen Martin will take charge of a PNE match for the third time this season on Saturday.

Martin oversaw North End’s 2-1 victory away to Rotherham United last month, while the other was a 4-0 defeat at Deepdale against Norwich City.

In total this season, Martin has refereed 19 matches, showing 74 yellow cards and three reds.

MACS VIEW

Hopefully the Blades will now go on a three day booze up to celebrate promotion, not usually a happy hunting ground maybe this Saturday they will kindly donate three points to us otherwise it's game over

[themaclad]

Sheffield United 4 Ahmedhdzic, Fleck, Ndiaye, McBurniePreston North End 1 Delap

Sheffield United line-up: Foderingham; Basham, Ahmedhodžić, Robinson (Egan, 82); Bogle, Norwood, Doyle (Berge, 61), Lowe; McAtee (Fleck, 72), Sharp (Jebbison, 61), Ndiaye (McBurnie, 82). Subs not used: Davies, Baldock.

PNE line-up: Woodman; Storey (Delap, 45), Bauer, Hughes; Potts, Ledson (Woodburn, 88), Onomah (McCann, 69), Johnson, Fernández; Cannon, Parrott (Leigh, 88). Subs not used: Cornell, Lindsay, Slater.

Attendance: 30,718.

Referee: Mr S Martin.

Didn't attend cricket has begun apparently it was a less impressive performance Mr Fantastic was not happy after the game, it's never his fault, any clubs match report

Preston North End’s chances of finishing in the Play-Offs ended following a 4-1 defeat to the already-promoted Sheffield United.

Anel Ahmedhodžić opened the scoring in the 38th minute, before half-time substitute Liam Delap netted his first goal for the club to level in the second period.

The Blades were soon back ahead, though, through John Fleck, and Iliman Ndiaye and Oli McBurnie then added to the scoring.



North End started the match brightly and were enjoying their fair share of possession, creating chances through Troy Parrott – whose effort was blocked – and Josh Onomah, who produced a save from goalkeeper Wes Foderingham.

The hosts then started to grow into the game and could have found the lead on 21 minutes when Ndiaye broke with speed and slipped the ball through to Tommy Doyle, who was denied by a great stop at close range by Freddie Woodman.



PNE’s No.1 was beaten on 36 minutes, though, as Ahmedhodžić rose highest on the end of Doyle’s corner and his header went in off the post.

Doyle nearly made it two in the next attack for the Blades as he looked to find the bottom corner, only for Woodman to tip round the post.

His work for the half wasn’t over yet, with the goalkeeper then required to tip Oliver Norwood’s dipping 30-yard free-kick over the crossbar.

Three minutes into the second period, Tom Cannon so nearly had the leveller as the ball broke kindly in his direction, but his effort was saved at close range by Foderingham.

The hosts then came even closer at the other end, firstly through Ndiaye who showed good feet before having a strike saved by Woodman, and the rebound from James McAtee was then blocked on the line by Andrew Hughes.

PNE levelled the game on 63 minutes with a great goal as Potts was found in space on the right and he drilled a brilliant cross in for half-time substitute Delap to tap in from close range.

It seemed like North End had the momentum at that stage but the Blades broke quickly through Daniel Jebbison ten minutes later, who backheeled for Fleck and Hughes threw himself in front of the effort, but that only helped the ball loop over Woodman and into the back of the net.

A third goal came just a couple of minutes later when Jebbison found Ndiaye alone in the area to finish, and McBurnie then volleyed home a fourth to cap off a promotion party at Bramall Lane.

Sheffield United manager Paul Heckingbottom told BBC Radio Sheffield:

"The team was excellent - the approach and mentality. Any time you play on a Wednesday night and then again on a Saturday, your margin for error and for recuperation is reduced.

"We also celebrated fairly well on Wednesday into Thursday, so it was all about our mentality and approach and I couldn't be any prouder of the staff and players. The performance was excellent and the scoreline reflected that.

"Picking the team was about having six players on the pitch who could last 90 minutes, and that's not us taking the game lightly.

"We were all together celebrating and then we were all together preparing for this. It has been a remarkable season - we have two games left and want to win them, get over 90 points."

Preston manager Ryan Lowe told BBC Radio Lancashire:

"My emotions are high at the moment so I'll be careful what I say. I'm disappointed obviously as I wanted to take it to the last day of the season and give ourselves a chance.

"I've just said to the group in there that if they don't want to follow suit, then move on because I'm not hanging around to take a bang-average team through the division.

"I need a team of men, of good-quality players, a team of players who are going to do what I ask them to do, which they've done for large parts of the season.

"But when you fold the way we folded there, it's disappointing."

[themaclad]