Oxford United fell to their third consecutive defeat at Bramall Lane this evening as goals from Callum O'Hare, Tyrese Campbell and Jesurun Rak-Sakyi took Sheffield United to the top of the Championship.
United made two changes to the side that lost to Middlesbrough on Saturday, with Elliott Moore unavailable due to picking up his fifth yellow card of the season, Przemysław Płacheta started on the left, while up front Dane Scarlett was preferred to Mark Harris.
Despite United's early endeavour, it was Sheffield United that took the lead in the 10th minute when a long throw by captain Jack Robinson was flicked on and the ball fell perfectly for O'Hare, who fired home. The question now was whether Oxford heads would drop or not.
They didn't, but in the 26th minute Campbell struck again to give United a mountain to climb. Gustavo Hamer was the architect, making a slide-rule pass through the Oxford defence. Campbell timed his run perfectly, took a touch to take the ball away from Cumming and slipped the ball into the empty net.
The last thing United needed was for Sheffield to score a third before they had a chance to regroup, and Hamer almost made it three moments later, but Cumming did well to get down and tip his shot round the post. Cumming denied Hamer again after 37 minutes, palming his well-struck shot away for another corner.
Campbell really should have scored seven minutes into the second half as he turned in the area and had time to pick his spot, but he blasted his shot wide. Instead, it was Rak-Sakyi who broke the offside line and with just Cumming to beat, he had the simplest task to make it 3-0 and effectively end the game as a contest with less than an hour gone.
Oxford looked to give their magnificent away supporters something to cheer about and Michael Cooper was called into action to tip over drives from Matt Phillips and Idris El Mizouni.
It's been a difficult week for the U's so far and they will hope to turn their fortunes around on Saturday when they welcome Millwall to the Kassam Stadium. The boys need your support - see you there.
UNITED: Cumming, Long, Brown, Vaulks (McEachran 74), Płacheta (El Mizouni 67), Brannagan, Goodrham (Dale 74), Rodrigues (Phillips 56), Leigh, ter Avest, Scarlett (Harris 74)
Unused subs: Ingram, Goodwin, Ferdinan, Thorniley
Attendance: 25,574 (including 863 away fans)
Report: Martin Brodetsky; Photography: JasonPix, Steve Edmunds
