Sheffield United moved to the top of the Championship with a 3-0 win over Oxford at Bramall Lane.

Goals from Callum O’Hare, Tyrese Campbell and Jesurun Rak-Sakyi gave the Blades a comfortable victory, with Oxford rarely threatening.

O’Hare gave the hosts a 10th-minute lead. Jack Robinson’s long throw caused problems for the Oxford defence, the ball was headed on by Harry Souttar and fell to Campbell whose low cross was turned in by O’Hare.

Sydie Peck and Gustavo Hamer combined to set-up Campbell, who slipped the ball to the side of onrushing keeper Jamie Cumming and slotted into the unguarded net in the 26th minute.

As the home side continued to apply pressure, Hamer had a couple of efforts saved by Cumming.

Peck put a shot on the turn wide and Rak-Sakyi also fired an effort wide before the Blades went further ahead.

The third goal came in the 58th minute when Hamer slipped a great ball through to Rak-Sakyi, who found himself one-on-one with Cumming and fired past the keeper with ease.

Cumming then made a good save to keep out Femi Seriki’s angled low shot.

A couple of changes to the home line-up were made shortly after the hour-mark when Campbell and Rak-Sakyi were replaced by Andre Brooks and Ryan One.

A rare Oxford attack saw substitute Matt Phillips test Michael Cooper with a shot which was turned over by the keeper.

In the closing stages, substitute Idris El Mizouni received the ball from Phillips and tried a shot from just inside the area which was well saved by Cooper.

The result meant that Sheffield United have won five out of their last six games ahead of Friday night’s clash with promotion rivals Sunderland.

Meanwhile, Oxford have tasted victory just once in their last 12 outings, leaving them hovering above the relegation zone.

The managers

Sheffield United’s Chris Wilder:

“The game’s got to be won. We have to show a top mentality. We made it a comfortable evening by being clinical when we had to be and showing that mentality.

“It’s a tough league, they had a tough afternoon on Saturday and coming up the road and a few of the injuries that they’ve got, but it’s important that we showed that top mentality, which we did.

“They were never out the game, they’re dangerous opponents. They’ve got players that can hurt you and find a goal and if they do find that goal then it becomes a difficult evening, but we controlled it.

“Even late on where Coops (Michael Cooper) has made a save and Robbo (Jack Robinson) has got across his man and made a tremendous block. The attitude to keep clean sheets and the attitude to defend properly was important and we showed that tonight.

“Some games look after themselves, our previous home game looked after itself. There will be games in the second part of the season that look after themselves.

“We’re coming off a Saturday to a Tuesday to a Friday night yet again and you know I look at everybody else’s fixtures and maybe there’s only another one or two that have the short turnaround that we’re having to deal with. It’s not ideal for Sunderland, not ideal for us, but we will get on with it.”

Oxford’s Des Buckingham:

“It’s a tough place to come, a team at the top of the table. I thought we gave a good account of ourselves for the first 30 minutes until we gave away a throw-in, a goal.

“I think when you come to a place where teams haven’t scored, I think, in nine hours, they don’t give up goals lightly, so you don’t have to go and chase the game.

“But we’ve reverted back to the shape that we’re comfortable in and we’ve done as much as we could to try and prevent them.

“Their ambition, I’m sure, as a club this year, is to go up. Ours is to make sure we stay up and we need to make sure again as we bring our players back and we revert back to what we’re good at, that we get ourselves right now for what’s coming in the next month.

“The reality is we haven’t had the squad available to us for the last six, eight, nine, 10 weeks.”