United's youthful second string were cruelly denied a deserved share of the spoils against West Brom at the BT Local Business Stadium on Wednesday night, despite a resilient performance.
The Blades responded excellently after a Josh Knight doubled had put the visitors two up. Kallum O'Kane brought the Blades back into the game, before a relentless charge on the Albion goal in the second-period culminated in Dean Kiely saving a Nathaniel Foster penalty and Jonathan Fortune hitting the woodwork.
Slew had the first chance inside the opening minute but he was unable to hit the target from the edge of the box.
In the 30th minute the Baggies broke the deadlock. KNIGHT saw his initial shot saved by Billard, but the young goalkeeper was powerless to stop the rebound.
Seven minutes later a long diagonal ball by Thorne caught the Blades defence out and after being upended in the box by Pomares, KNIGHT dusted himself down to beat Billard from 12 yards.
United, though, were in no mood to resign themselves to defeat and O'KANE gave the home side a lifeline on the stroke of half-time. The defender excellently tucked the ball away after Slew's effort had rebounded off the post, following good work by Wilkinson.
The second half was one-way traffic for the large part, with Foster, Slew, James and Wilkinson all having half-chances and in the 57th minute United had the perfect opportunity to get a point.
As the ball bounced into the box Downing was adjudged to have handled and the referee pointed to the spot. Foster confidently steeped up, but the evergreen Kiely superbly denied him diving to his right and reacted quickest to bravely block the rebound.
The Blades refused to give the game up and came even closer to an equaliser in stoppage time, the ball was kept alive in the box and Fortune saw his powerful volley hit the underside of the crossbar and bounce to safety.
Coach Mark Smith was full of praise for the youngsters afterwards and he is optimistic for the rest of the season, should United be able to replicate that type of performance consistently:
"Overall it was a really pleasing effort; we played at a good tempo with an excellent work ethic and in the second half forced West Brom onto the back foot.
"It is disappointing because we definitely deserved something from the game, but if we maintain this level of effort and play with the correct attitude we will win more than we lose."
Blades: Billard, O'Kane, Darlow, Wilkinson, Fortune, Maguire, Gregory (Ahmadi 73), James, Foster (Murray 76), Slew, Pomares (Pennycooke-Morgan 83).
Unused: Andrew, Lammy.
WBA: Kiely, Samuels, Waghorn, Thorne, Meite, Downing, Knight, Grier (Mannion 80), Elford-Alliyu (Lynch 90), Mantom, Brown
Unused: Allsop, Gayle, Connolly.
