Sheffield United vs Leicester City: 5 Things To Look Out For

Chris Wilder, now in his third spell at Bramall Lane, was interviewed for the Leicester job in the summer and has worked hard to bring this Blades squad up to the standards he expects.

Whilst City sit higher in the table, both sides are similarly inconsistent, with two wins, a draw and two defeats in their previous five matches.

Here are five things to look out for as City start the new year away at Sheffield United.  

Will City try to be a bit more direct again?

The Marti Cifuentes style so far has involved a lot of short, precise passing, usually in central areas. It’s a strategy he’s rarely deviated from and one that can become a real source of frustration for City fans.

However, against Derby, some of the balls forward were longer and more direct and this paid dividends, with Jordan James’s goal proving to be the winner.

Now, we’re not advocating for route one football, but we do have plenty of pace and the willing runners necessary to cause problems with balls into the channels and balls in behind. Is Cifuentes finally starting to show a bit of versatility in his tactics?  

Can more academy graduates be trusted to start games?

Leicester’s squad is looking a little thin at the moment, with a number of senior players absent either through injury or having fallen out of favour. Six of the 11 players that finished the victory over Derby had come through the youth ranks at the club.

Let’s discount Jakub Stolarczyk, Luke Thomas and Ben Nelson for this conversation, as they are established first-team players. That leaves Jeremy Monga, Louis Page and Silko Thomas, who all came off the bench on Monday, plus Bade Aluko who was an unused substitute.

These four only have eight league starts between them this season, yet the impact they had from the bench against Derby cannot be understated. They brought pace, energy, work-rate and sensible decision-making to help their side see out the win.

As the pileup of fixtures continues into the new year, we could see some of these players be trusted from the start a little more often.  

Can Leicester’s defence build on a reasonably solid outing?

The back four looked decent against Derby. Let’s not get carried away because the Rams attack was fairly toothless, but aside from the goal, we didn’t give up many chances.

Nelson is growing in stature game by game and whilst Caleb Okoli isn’t the best when he has the ball, he’s pretty adept at winning it back and is good physically.

Luke Thomas had one of his better games and with the two club captains interchanging at right-back, you usually know what you’re going to get there.

For the time being, we’ve given up directly asking if clean sheets are possible (although we wouldn’t complain if one came along) but there are certainly signs that it could be on the cards sometime soon.

It will be interesting to see if Jannik Vestergaard is fit, whether he comes back into the side or if Cifuentes sticks with Nelson and Okoli as his preferred centre-half pairing.  

Can our strikers start scoring more goals?

Most teams that do well in the Championship have a proper goalscorer - someone who is going to comfortably get into the teens and push for 20+ goals. Leicester City certainly do not have one of those.

Jordan Ayew is our highest scoring striker with four goals in 23 games: a strike rate of a goal every 5.75 games. He does bring experience, leadership and holdup play into the equation, but he cannot continue to be relied upon as the focal point of our attack.

Next up, Patson Daka, with one goal in 22 appearances - you can do the maths for his goals-per-game! He went almost a year without a goal for City, and ended a 20-month goal drought for Zambia at the Africa Cup of Nations in December - swiftly following this by landing on his head during the celebration, failing to score in the next two games and finishing bottom of the group.

Julian Carranza has failed to find the net in his nine Leicester appearances; although he has only amassed 315 minutes of playing time. The lad has hardly had a look in since joining on loan from Feyenoord on deadline day and has now been an unused substitute for ten games straight.

There are strong rumours that the loan spell will be cut short in January to allow Carranza to move on elsewhere, which will also free up funds to pay a new striker, be that Michail Antonio or someone else from the loan market.

If Antonio is back to the level he was at before his horrific accident, and if he can stay fit, you would back him to get into double figures by the end of the season.

Will we start 2026 on a more positive note?

Whilst this one isn’t specifically about the Sheffield United game, it could be the catalyst for a better year.

Let’s face it, 2025 was a bit of a horror show on many fronts. The fans are feeling a lack of connection with the club, a growing unrest with the ownership, and frustration over transfer and contract mismanagement.

But on the pitch, you could argue it was even worse. We headed into 2025 on the back of four straight defeats: Ruud van Nistelrooy’s new manager bounce had very rapidly gone limp.

Leicester did win two games in January: in the FA Cup against QPR and in the league against Spurs, but what followed was a nightmare run of nine consecutive defeats with just one FA Cup goal scored.

It's been nowhere near as bad as that on the pitch this season but we're desperate to see City put together a run of results that makes it feel like we're playing for something this season.

There are seven games in January, as well as it being a crucial time in terms of the transfer window. New year, new Leicester? We'll have to wait and see.  

Final thoughts

The Derby win has to be the blueprint for success in the second half of the season. Do the basics, work hard, and win your duels. This will then allow the ability of our star players to have a positive impact at the other end of the pitch.

The quality is there on paper, the desire has been there in flashes on the pitch, and we need to see more of both to enjoy a happy start to the new year.