Blades restore eight point advantage over Luton in battle to reach the Premier League

Sheffield United restored their eight point advantage over Luton in the battle for automatic promotion to the Premier League with a late 1-0 win over Bristol City last night.

It had looked like the Blades might be frustrated at Bramall Lane until James McAtee, brother of Town striker John, fired home with 14 minutes to go.

With both sides now having four games to go, the Hatters head to Reading this evening, knowing that anything but victory would realistically end their already slim hopes of finishing in second spot.

Ahead of the contest, boss Rob Edwards said: “We want to win every game, so at the moment, until someone tells me that we can’t get automatic promotion then we’re going to try and win every game and get every point that’s available to us.

“While something’s possible then we’ve got to try and go for it.

"We’re well aware of where we’re at and the brilliant position that Sheffield United are in, but we’ve still got to go and get those points and get those wins.

"They’ll be confident they can do that as they’ve done that all season long, but we’ve got four games to go and we want to try and win every one of them.”

With West Bromwich Albion winning 2-0 at Blackpool, Town know a win at the Madejski Stadium would secure a play-off place.

A draw will be enough too, with Millwall losing 1-0 at home to Birmingham City last night, but that hasn’t really come into Edwards’ thinking yet, as he continued: “We haven’t even talked about what we need to be honest.

"I’m aware that we are in a good position, but I’ve not looked at what we need to confirm anything.

"We haven’t talked about ‘this is all we need lads and this is what we want to do’.

"It’s about trying to win the next game, and that’s all we’ve ever done.

“I think by doing that, that’s what’s got us into this position we are in right now.

"So there is no thought on just needing a single point, or anything like that from the game, it’s fully focused on what’s ahead of us and try and win.”

Following tonight’s trip to the Royals, Luton have a further three games to navigate before taking part in the play-offs, but on whether he would start resting players to make sure they are fit for the two-legged trip against whoever Town face, plus a hopeful final at Wembley, then speaking yesterday Edwards added: “After tomorrow, we go Monday, Monday, Monday, so there’s enough time there.

"If you start resting players then, potentially, they’re not played for a couple of weeks and that’s not ideal either.

“We’ll try and do what’s right for the squad and momentum.

"We talked about that word after the game on Saturday, we’ve got momentum and we want to keep that.

“At the same time, we want as many fit as possible, so we’ve got to try and find that balance.”