Head-to-Head: Tranmere Rovers (a)

Sheffield United will be looking for the perfect tonic to overturn the embarrassing 4-0 defeat inflicted by Stevenage, seeing as everybody else (including Bury and Tranmere) are seemingly showing the Blades how its done, but on the road Danny Wilson's United side have been very convincing with ten victories (6 draws) from 19 matches played.

The Candy Stripes head to Prenton Park for the eleventh time in the clubs history, they first ever met on 19 November 1938 with United winning by two goals without reply away from Bramall Lane with a brace from Jock Dodds, later in the season on 25 March the Blades won again 2-0. That was in the Second Division (now Championship) and wouldn't face each other in the league until 1981-82 campaign where the Red and White Wizards again won 2-0 but drew our Fourth Division tie 2-2 at the Park later on.

For United these two seasons were particularly memorable as each ended in promotion, winning the Fourth Division at a cantor and runners-up behind Blackburn Rovers in the Second but had the satisfaction of winning promotion to the top flight, beating third placed Sheffield 'Washday' Wednesday by a single point! Our most collective battles have come between 1994 when the Blades were relegated from the Premier League and 2001 when Rovers were relegated from the Championship and have spent twelve years (to date) battling to re-instate there name back in the Second Division.

United and Rovers shared memorable fixtures during that time, including a 3-3 draw at the Park in April 1998 which included two strikes from Greek International Traianos Dellas. Throughout our 21 league battles the Blades have lost only three matches and of these only once at Bramall Lane, this came in August 1995 when Tranmere triumphed by two goals to nil.

At Bramall Lane the Blades have been dominant, with the exception of that solo defeat mentioned United have won six matches and drawn four - our 'biggest' win a 3-1 victory in February 2000 under the revival of Neil Warnock. Goals from Paul Devlin, Marcus Bent and a miss-cross which comically found the net from Bobby Ford won the match for the Blades, Scott Taylor had given Rovers a leveller before United responded.

Earlier in the season (on 15 December 2012), prior to Christmas the pair shared a 0-0 draw at Bramall Lane, it was only the second time in all the meetings that a scoreless draw was played out and there has yet to be a 0-0 draw played out at Prenton Park so we may be in for some goals this weekend?

* Statistics correct up to and including 27 March 2013