Sheffield United vs Lincoln City; Sky Bet Championship
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Sheffield United vs Lincoln City. Sky Bet Championship.
Bramall Lane.
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Sheffield United 3-0 Lincoln City: Patrick Bamford scores twice as Blades bounce back from two straight defeats
Report and free match highlights from the Sky Bet Championship match between Sheffield United and Lincoln City at Bramall Lane on Saturday; Patrick Bamford scores twice and Tahith Chong also on target as Blades win first league game in three
Saturday 10 October 2026 18:21, UK
Patrick Bamford scored twice to help Sheffield United to a comfortable 3-0 victory over Lincoln.
The result, who also saw Tahith Chong on the scoresheet, ended a three-match losing run for Chris Wilder's men in all competitions against a side which had won three of their previous four away matches.
Lincoln applied early pressure and had a great chance to open the scoring when Rob Street headed the ball back to Sonny Bradley, who headed over from the edge of the six-yard box. It was a chance that the skipper will surely feel he should have at least put on target.
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Before then, United goalkeeper Michael Cooper comfortably dealt with a low shot from Conor McGrandles and an Adam Reach free-kick.
The home side then grew into the game with Joe Rothwell putting a long-range drive only a fraction wide and Ben Brereton Diaz firing straight at George Wickens in the Lincoln goal before they drew first blood.
The goal came two minutes before the break when Rothwell found Sam McCallum on the left-hand side of the area and he squared to Bamford, who found the net with a deft near-post flick.
Rothwell fired over from a good position soon after the restart before the Blades increased their lead.
Chong struck in the 52nd minute when firing under Wickens from a tight angle after receiving the ball from Rothwell.
Lincoln made a triple substitution shortly after the hour-mark with Mikel Ladefoged, Yunus Konak and Chiedozie Ogbene all joining the action.
The changes did little to help Lincoln's cause, however, with the hosts continuing to hold the upper hand and it was no surprise when they went further ahead.
The third goal came in the 77th minute when Brereton Diaz swung the ball over from the right wing and Bamford beat Wickens with a well-executed far-post volley.
Ogbene threatened on a couple of occasions down the left wing, without seriously putting the defence under threat.
The Imps had failed to build on their promising start and United showed little sign of allowing them to find a way back into the game.
When the visitors did have a chance in the closing stages, Ladefoged spurned a golden opportunity to pull a goal back.
Cooper did superbly well to keep out the striker's close-range effort and when the rebound fell to Ladefoged, he somehow screwed his shot wide.
United leapfrogged their opponents into 13th place, while Lincoln slipped down to 15th after a second successive defeat.
The managers
Sheffield United's Chris Wilder:
"We needed a clean sheet, we needed a big performance. The team that we were playing - one of the best away records in the division - hasn't just been given them and wasn't given their 100-plus points last season.
"Well coached last year, well coached this year, awkward opposition, honest, played to a way that's really, really effective.
"Regardless of the name of the football club or where they've been, or how many years they've not been in the Championship or if they've never been in the Championship, they're here on merit and they're going to pose a lot of teams problems this season.
"And we understood that challenge right away through the two or three weeks that we had to prepare for it.
"The pressure obviously has cranked up over the last two or three weeks. We're after that winning feeling and we've got it today.
"We needed to play well. Players needed to up their game because we've got a lot of good players.
"It's always easy to play when the champagne's dripping from the ceiling. This was a tough game and we had to show what we were about individually, our mentality and most importantly our personality.
"It was a bit scruffy at the start, which I think you could understand that off the back of the last two losses, but once we got the first goal, I thought we were we had control of the game.
"It's a dangerous opposition. And we needed big performances from everybody, the coaches, the manager and the players."
Lincoln's Chris Cohen:
"I thought for half an hour, I thought we were a fair game for being level. We wanted to come and try and create some nervousness.
"We understood there's a bit of tension around the position that Sheffield United are in and where they want to be. I thought we did that.
"We changed our structure a little bit. I thought we had a couple of phases of play, but then a sucker punch.
"We know the quality of the league. We understand that if we give good players time and space, they're going to be able to hurt us.
"But most definitely, we'll watch them goals back and we'll find ways that we could have been better to stop.
"We're going to have some tough games, some tough days. We understand that we don't want them and we're never going to settle for them.
"But we know there's a group of players there that are capable of coming to Sheffield United and getting a result."
