It was no surprise that Olly decided to stick with the same starting XI that had done for Ipswich in some style during the week. Royce was in goal behind Bignot, Shittu, Santos and Rose. Ainsworth, Doherty, Bircham and Rowlands lined up in midfield with Gallen and Furlong up front.

The opening twenty odd minutes of the game were shocking with only a lone Paul Ifill effort to show for either teams efforts. The sparkling interplay of Tuesday night seemed to have been dragged downward by Sheffield United’s slightly more earthy tactics. Their reliance on the long ball to Shipperley was all too evident and Rangers seemed to be getting caught up in it.

Gallen had the first “effort” on goal when he met a ball in from the right with a flicked volley that went a mile wide of the post. A better chance followed soon after when Ainsworth broke a tackle on the right and delivered a cross that seemed to drift between Gallen and Furlong as they attacked the near and far posts respectively.

If the football had been lacking up to this point it became almost non-existent when Tommy Doherty was forced off through injury. He had slid in to rob a United attacker of the ball and in doing so seemed to tweak something. He carried on manfully for a further ten minutes before the bench decided to take him off. He certainly didn’t ask to be subbed and looked a bit miffed when his number came up. Stefan Moore replaced him with Gallen dropping back into the centre of midfield.

God knows what the half time team talks from both managers would have been like as they would hardly have been able to draw on the positives of the half! Nevertheless it was Rangers that started the brighter and within ten minutes they had taken the lead through a brilliant strike from Bircham.

A hopeful ball into the box was headed clear by Morgan but the ball only went as far as Bircham who was lurking twenty five yards from goal. He allowed the ball to drop onto his thigh before he unleashed a cracking volley that left Paddy Kenny rooted to the spot as it crashed into the back of the net. It was a goal from the moment it left his foot and I apologise to the bloke sitting behind me as I was up celebrating long before it got near the net! Bircham will be a bit worried though as he has shot his bolt a bit early this season!

Stefan Moore was starting to influence the game now and his pace was causing problems for Morgan and pedestrian substitute Craig Short. Sheffield United were trying to force some pressure but every time they did Moore was an excellent release and time and again the ball was played to him to run it clear from danger. On one such occasion he managed to get a shot in that was well saved by Paddy Kenny.

Ainsworth had managed to run out of steam now and Aaron Brown came on for his first appearance of the season. Rowlands switched to the right and Brown immediately showed what he is about when he jinked past two defenders before seeing his cross cleared. Rowly had been his usual industrious self and had tried to lift the gloom with a number of his trademark jinking runs.

With a couple of minutes left to play Rowlands was replaced by Bean as Olly switched to a defensive looking 4-5-1 formation with Moore moving over to the right and Furlong ploughing a lone furrow up top. It was very much a case of holding onto what you have so there were howls of derision when the fourth official’s board showed five minutes of injury time. Where he had got this from is beyond me but it was in keeping with a generally poor showing from Mr Tanner as he turned in an embarrassingly one sided second half performance.

In the first minute of injury time though all of that was forgotten as Stefan Moore opened his account in a blue and white hoped shirt. He launched another lightening break and played an excellent ball across the box to Mathew Rose. Rose attempted an ambitious volley, what made him think it would come off is beyond me as he had been poor all afternoon, and the ball went straight back to Moore. He controlled the ball on his chest before volleying left footed past Kenny and into the bottom corner.

It seemed job done for Rangers until the official contrived to allow Steve(n) Kabba to grab a goal in the fourth minute of injury time. A ball was pumped into the box and Santos slipped as he attacked it. The ball fell into the path of a United player who then passed to Kabba who was at least a yard offside. He couldn’t miss from five yards and it made for a tense last minute.

Thankfully Rangers held on for a good win although there didn’t seem to be much goodwill out on the pitch as Blades skipper Chris Morgan went mental and had to be restrained by Colin. He would later claim to have been scared by Bircham. What a hard man!

This was not a good game to watch although the result was excellent. Various sources had said that United had not played that well despite winning both games before this and it seemed to be born out. To say I was under whelmed wouldn’t be too far wide of the mark. They seemed overly reliant on hitting Shipperley with the long ball for knock downs to Webber. Rangers themselves never quite seemed to get going and the game was more about industry than flair.

A trip to the Bruce Rioch Arena is up next as Coventry welcome the European champions to their new ground. Coventry seem to be suffering from playing all three games away from home at the moment and it might be similar when they get back to the unfamiliar surrounds of a new stadium. Lets hope so and lets hope we play like we did against Ipswich rather than we did against The Blades.

simon@qprnet.com