Leeds United 0 Sheffield United 1 - Phil Hay's verdict: Long fortnight awaits Marcelo Bielsa as Whites suffer Blades blow

A break in the season was no more timely for Sheffield United with the adrenaline of a win at Elland Road running through them but Leeds are condemned to a restless fortnight.

Marcelo Bielsa planned to give his players the early part of this week off and did not drag them in after a sore defeat but he will launch them back into double sessions before the end of it and the club’s head coach knows the chips are down.

Saturday was about initiative, rather than promotion itself, and Sheffield United have it.

“You can’t say that this result is crucial,” Bielsa insisted. “But at the same time we can’t deny the importance of the game.”

The pre-match billing had it as 1990 revisited; the warm, April afternoon when a Gordon Strachan-inspired Leeds made a fool of Sheffield United goalkeeper Simon Tracey and stuck four unanswered goals past him.

They and Sheffield United were neck-and-neck in the old second division 29 years ago and are as close to each other again, separated by a hair’s width and a single point.

With eight games to go, the Blades have the edge.

Leeds came good for Wilkinson in 1990 but what Bielsa got was a rainstorm of chances which got away, mistakes which Sheffield United seized upon and a red card for Kiko Casilla which left a limping Pontus Jansson in goal in injury-time.

Chris Basham’s strike won it, 19 minutes from the end, but there was so much more to the match than that, as Chris Wilder conceded.

“He (Basham) has done well to be the match-winner,” Wilder said, “because he was coming off after 25 minutes. He was absolutely useless.”

Leeds were competent by comparison but only for 70 minutes and not in a way which counted for anything. Patrick Bamford dithered on a early chance and let Martin Cranie get across him to block it. Jack Harrison met a better one at close-range but side-footed it over the crossbar.

An hour had gone when Pablo Hernandez threaded a needle from the right wing and Tyler Roberts smashed Mateusz Klich’s cut-back against the face of a post.

Opportunities created and opportunities missed, a scenario which Bielsa had experienced so often that he no longer felt entitled to moan.

“After undergoing so many situations like today, I don't feel I have the right to explain how unfair the result is,” he said.

Billy Sharp spoke Bielsa’s mind for him.“In the first half-hour they battered us,” he admitted. Basham was very nearly Wilder’s scapegoat.

A draw would not have enthused Bielsa much more than a defeat - “if the opinion is that we deserved to draw then I have a different opinion,” he said - but it would have kept Wilder’s side at arm’s length and behind Leeds in the table.

A goalless finish was beginning to loom, as it had for a while at Bramall Lane in December, when the events of their pre-Christmas derby repeated themselves and a bad mistake in the 71st minute changed everything.

Liam Cooper attempted to bring a dropping ball under control but let it slip through his legs, into the path of Sharp. The striker has scored at will this season but got his head up, spotted Basham sprinting away from Barry Douglas and delivered a pass which Basham tucked away before losing his feet.

Wilder was relieved that he gave the midfielder the benefit of the doubt. “He dug himself out of a hole and other players dug him out of a hole because he didn’t have the greatest of (first) halves,” Wilder said.

Basham’s slip as he scored was the consequence of a pitch which Leeds worked to make playable before kick-off. A month’s worth of rain was forecast to fall on Friday night and parts of the surface at Elland Road were covered with plastic sheets. The stadium has not seen a postponement for almost 30 years and the derby was never under threat but the weather created a spongy, lifeless surface which caused the ball to stick.

David McGoldrick almost profited from it on the stroke of half-time when possession held up on one touchline and gave him time to send Basham clean through. Casilla was off his goalline in a flash to cut the angle and stifle the attack.

There was controversy in the first half too when George Baldock, Sheffield United’s right-back, flew into a tackle on Jansson and caught him on the shin. Referee David Coote took a lenient view and showed him a yellow card. Bielsa was philosophical and typically generous.

“We had all the resources to get a different result,” he said. “That’s why we can’t say the referee had an impact.”

There was, eventually, a demonstration of Sheffield United’s threat in the minutes before half-time and again in the minutes after it.

“We had less quality in the second half but we dominated and had the feeling that we were dangerous,” Bielsa said. Roberts’ shot against a post was something of a tipping point, the moment where the possibility of a kick in the teeth felt very real. It came before long.

Bielsa sent on Barry Douglas, Stuart Dallas and Jack Clarke - back after his collapse at Middlesbrough and as direct and fearless as everyone remembered - but had no substitutes left when Jansson dispossessed Sharp and tweaked his knee. Jansson’s running was so restricted that Bielsa sent him up front to limit his movement. The defender should have equalised immediately when he turned Clarke’s low ball wide.

By the 91st minute, Jansson was taking the gloves from Casilla after another error from Cooper played Kalvin Phillips into trouble and put Sharp clean through. Casilla took Sharp down outside his box, forcing Coote to show his red card.

“Everybody knows I would have scored the goal,” Sharp said. “He took me out and I had to go down.”

Sheffield United and a packed away end met the final whistle as a promoted team might. As the international break goes by, Leeds can only hope that their neighbours from South Yorkshire have gone too soon with those celebrations.

Wilder refused to shout the odds but insisted he was “not going to be embarrassed about winning against the run of play a little bit.” Bielsa, with a fire alarm blaring throughout his press conference, let Wilder have his moment.

“It’s an important game and we lost it,” Bielsa said. Everything else was white noise.