Sheffield United 2 Portsmouth 1: Neil Allen's verdict - The unlikely ally convinced Blues will remain in the Championship

Irrespective of being spurned in favour of Richie Barker for the manager’s job more than 11 years ago, he has frequently spoken glowingly about the Blues and their supporters.

Certainly on Saturday he was grateful for the triumph which lifted his Blades side back into the Championship’s top two in a match where victory was ill-deserved and so damn unjust.

And, as a renowned straight talker, Wilder was also willing to share an opinion on Pompey's chances of avoiding Championship relegation.

‘100 per cent Pompey can stay up. They should have beaten Burnley last week, we’ve watched that game. It’s tough against Pompey at their place,’ he told The News after the Blades’ 2-1 win.

‘They've got something to build on considering their last two performances. You can see they are together, they have a lot of fight in the team and they've got quality.

‘(Josh) Murphy was brilliant off the left, I thought their two centre-forwards gave our two centre-halves more problems than anybody’s done all season.

‘They have structure - and I’m not taking anything away from a tactical point of view because tactically they were set up to press and we weren’t smart enough to miss the press out and into our front.

‘But the things that allow you to go and win games of football in this division, they showed in abundance on Saturday.

‘On another day, quite easily I could be sitting here and saying we’ve not been good enough and got the result that we deserved.

‘We didn’t get the result we deserved on Saturday - but we have that ability of winning games of football, which is priceless at any level.’

Perhaps such words offer little comfort, yet, during a period in which some of the Fratton faithful appear to be gradually losing belief, it represents an intriguing perspective from an opposition manager.

Wilder - and those 29,104 people in attendance at Bramall Lane - were privy to comfortably Pompey’s best away display of the season. Potentially also among their top performances overall this term.

The Blues have so often been woeful on their travels in the Championship, particularly when the squad’s alarming lack of depth has been exposed through rotation. Not so on Saturday.

With their high press clicking into place and backed by a new-look centre-half partnership which has transformed their defensive capabilities, Mousinho’s men were superb.

Such was the high calibre of their display, Wilder was forced into a triple substitution on 58 minutes amid the deeply unhappy Bramall Lane crowd’s restlessness and dissatisfaction rising by the minute.

Indeed, Pompey mustered 16 goal attempts compared to 11 involving hosts who lined up with last month’s £10m capture Tom Cannon, plus loanees Ben Brereton Diaz (Southampton) and Hamaz Choudhury (Leicester), who have both started Premier League matches this season.

Had it not been for the Blues’ frustrating wastefulness in front of goal, they would have returned to the south coast with a thoroughly-deserved triumph.

Instead, two of Sheffield United’s three on-target goal attempts found the net and it was the Championship high fliers who claimed a somewhat apologetic win, with the Blades’ fuming manager afterwards declaring they have been second-best in every department.

Pompey’s fans had wanted their team to go full strength away from Fratton Park, they - not unreasonably - demanded a huge improvement in terms of performances on their travels. That is precisely what they got, yet it still resulted in an eighth-straight defeat.

Once again prompted by the mercurial Josh Murphy on the left flank, their downfall was in front of goal, missing two open goals, two one-on-ones and having another correctly ruled out for a marginal off-side.

Connor Ogilvie did score, cancelling out Gustavo Hamer’s opener just three minutes later with a striker’s finish, throwing himself at the near post to steer Murphy’s cross home.

Unfortunately, two minutes from half-time, when presented with a simpler opportunity some four yards out with the goal at his mercy from another Murphy delivery, he failed to capitalise with a right-footed shot.

Then there was top-scorer Callum Lang on 18 minutes, with Murphy’s cross from the left finding his run at the far post, only to lift it over the bar right-footed from three yards out when a head or chest would have been more productive.

Pompey couldn’t even rely on Colby Bishop, culpable for missing the first chance of the game when he attempted to go around Michael Cooper, only for the keeper to fling out a hand and touch it away.

He had the ball in the net in the 48th minute with a smart far-post finish from Murphy’s free-kick delivered from the right, yet it was chalked off for off-side as he celebrated a 50th career goal for the Blues.

Then, on 68 minutes, Lang helped the ball on to put him clean through once more, yet the covering Jack Robinson’s challenge pressured him into firing over, albeit with the striker adamant it should have been a corner.

Somewhat inevitably, Blades substitute Jesurun Rak-Sakyi popped up at the far post just five minutes later to make the visitors pay for the profligacy with a 73rd-minute winner.

Granted, another defeat on their travels, once more ramping up the pressure for the next home match, in this instance Cardiff on Tuesday night.

Yet Pompey were superb. Don’t just take my word for it, listen to Chris Wilder.