in BUCS:
Sheffield United boss, Chris Wilder, cut a jovial figure after his Blades side drew 1-1 with Italian giants Inter Milan.
In United’s only pre-season fixture at Bramall Lane, it was a chance for United to show their home crowd that they mean business when the season starts a week on Saturday.
With a hatful of World Cup, European Championship and Champions League appearances between them, Inter Milan were pushed to their limits in an entertaining draw in front of almost 19,000 fans.
After bemoaning Saturday’s 0-0 draw at League Two Mansfield Town, Wilder was more than pleased with how his side performed against an Inter side who are gearing up for their first Champions League campaign for six years.
He said: “First of all, we want to play our game and I think at times we did.
“We didn’t want to just be cannon fodder for the opposition and just making the numbers up.
“I’ve been involved in too many pre-season friendlies where big teams play the smaller teams, and unfortunately we are in stature just a touch smaller than Inter Milan, it becomes testimonial-like and I didn’t want us to make it that. Inter didn’t want that to happen as well.”
The match saw David McGoldrick, who signed for the Blades on a free transfer just hours before the game, open his goalscoring account for United with a deft chip over Samir Handanovic.
Inter’s Mauro Icardi levelled seven minutes later to earn the Italians a share of the spoils.
On his latest recruit, and his third signing of the summer, Wilder added: “There’s a lot of clubs who just get sucked in to names and reputations and what they’ve done, paying over the odds and paying big transfer fees and paying big wages.
“David came in, was fantastic with his attitude, we’ve offered a deal that represents a really good [bit of] business from our point of view in terms of he has to hit an amount of games to reach the second year [of a contract].
“If you speak to him he’s enjoyed his time and he gives us something a bit different. He’s a centre-forward who has vast experience.”
