Neil Warnock sympathises with Paul Heckingbottom as he discusses Sheffield United promotion chances

Injury crises are part of football. Every team goes through them and does their best to prepare for them with their squad depth but Sheffield United have been suffering from one of the more difficult versions of an injury crisis, with several injuries in the same position.

The club's top goal scorer, Billy Sharp has been missing through a hamstring injury for the last five games. Whilst Sharp has scored 14 goals and he would have been missed regardless, the team would have coped better with Oli McBurnie, Rhian Brewster or David McGoldrick able to step into the breach.

However, all three of those were out of action in the 1-1 draw against Bristol City. This left Paul Heckingbottom with little choice but to play a front two of Iliman Ndiaye and Morgan Gibbs-White. Both of those players are more comfortable as attacking midfielders and Neil Warnock told the Sheffield Star that he felt sympathy for the Sheffield United manager as he bids to keep a play-off push alive without his best striking options.

"I feel sorry for Paul at the minute, they are so short of strikers. Last night (Monday), in fairness, they had two or three great chances in the first half. If one of them goes in, it’s a different game.

"I hope the physios are doing a good job and they can get McBurnie and Billy (Sharp) back as soon as possible.”

Warnock also spoke about the promotion race, saying that he hoped both his former sides, Middlesbrough and the Blades would make the top-six.

He admitted he recently thought the winner of the play-offs would come from those two but recent results have meant that they each face a battle to qualify.

He said: "Four or five weeks ago I thought the winners of the play-offs would be between Middlesbrough and Sheffield