Stay cool, says Keith

Tension kills. That's the message that former Blades goal king Keith Edwards wants the current United players to remember when they take to the pitch on Sunday.

The city derby at Hillsborough is, he predicts, guaranteed to be tight and tense as always and the key factor could well be the side that copes with it best:

"Obviously, getting the first goal will always have a great influence on how the match unfolds and will instil massive confidence in whoever gets it, but, that apart, the team that settles quickest will usually relax quicker and go on to win.

"If both teams could achieve that then it really would be a good derby. But the fact that there is always a fantastic atmosphere increases the pressure on the players and can often make the game a bit too tense to be a classic.

"Whilst both teams desperately want to win for pride, there's no doubt that for one team on Sunday there is more pressure to win the points because of their league position. In a sense, for Wednesday, the derby couldn't have come at a worse time."

And the striker who was a cult hero on the Lane terraces in the 70s and 80s tips Richard Cresswell to be the most likely to upset the Owls at Hillsborough and emerge as the matchwinner:

"How often does a former player turn up to bite a team on the bum? He is in cracking form and has been a very shrewd signing by Kevin Blackwell.

"It is probably a case of Richard benefiting from knowing that he is most likely to play every week because of the injuries at the Club, added to the fact that he is playing well enough to command a place anyway."

Strangely, for one who played so many times for United Edwards himself never played in a Sheffield derby, probably because the clubs were in different divisions, but he will be there on Sunday working for BBC Radio Sheffield and could be a potentially lucky omen:

"I might not have played in a Sheffield derby but every time I played at Hillsborough I scored!"