BLADES boss Nigel Clough is banking on Swindon Town and Bristol City being unable to keep up their momentum as he looks to guide his side to automatic promotion.

Sheffield United are currently 18 points adrift of Town and City’s total of 54 points, with the South Yorkshire club sitting just outside the play-off places in ninth.

Due to the Blades’ cup exploits –11 games in the FA and League Cup, as well as a couple of rounds in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy on top of their League One programme – they have at least one game in hand on the teams above them in the table.

With the top six in touching distance, Clough is still targeting a tilt at automatic promotion, his ambition founded on the belief that the breakaway group at the top of the league - Town, City, and MK Dons, with Preston just in touch - cannot keep up the pace they have maintained over the first part of the season.

“There are still plenty of games to go, I think when you see two teams on 50-odd points, it’s highly unlikely (the top four) are going to replicate that in the second half of the season,” said the United manager.

“You don’t see many teams on 108 points come the end of the season. We know what we’ve got to do between now and the end of the season, we’ll do everything we can to get in that top two and, if not, we’ll focus on the top six.”

United, of course, came unstuck at the County Ground earlier in the season, losing 5-2, but Clough thought that defeat was closer than the score suggested and has more confidence in his backline now.

“It’s funny, that day we went 3-0 down and then we got back in it at 3-2. Then for that little spell we could have gone and got something out of the game,” he added.

“Even with the result, what was it 5-2 at Swindon? Maybe there wasn’t that much of a gap in the game.

“Defensively we were very poor that day, we’ve changed a bit since then, we’ve got almost a different back four out there now, which is good. We’re a lot more solid, I think the partnership of Chris Basham and Jay McEveley is much better option than we had earlier on in the season.”

The two sides’ preparation could not have been more different for Saturday’s game, with Town enjoying a sunny break in Tenerife since beating Chesterfield, whereas United have played three times following defeat at MK Dons.

Clough though does not expect the minds of Town’s players to still be on the sun, saying: “You hope (they might be ring rusty), you never know. But when you come off an enforced break like that as a player you can’t wait for the next game again.”