Sheffield United 1-0 Bristol City: James McAtee's winner pushes Blades closer to promotion
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Substitute James McAtee scored the crucial goal with 13 minutes remaining
Sheffield United moved a step closer to automatic promotion from the Championship as James McAtee's second-half strike earned a nervy win over Bristol City.
The Blades had found it hard to create any clear-cut chances until the 77th minute, when Iliman N'Diaye slid in substitute McAtee and his left-footed shot beat Max O'Leary in the Robins goal.
The visitors had been the better side in an opening half in which Harry Cornick saw a shot saved, while the Blades failed to muster an effort on goal.
But Paul Heckingbottom's side improved in the second half and the pressure told.
Victory moved Sheffield United eight points clear of third-placed Luton, who visit Reading on Wednesday, with four games remaining.
The visitors settled well and made several early openings, with Anel Ahmedhodzic forced into a well-timed tackle to deny Sam Bell as he burst in behind.
Cornick then had an even better opening but drilled his shot straight at Sheffield United goalkeeper Adam Davies from inside the box.
Bell saw his penalty claim rejected as he went down under a Blades challenge and the young striker also saw a header deflected behind after 16 minutes in a busy opening period.
The hosts were struggling to create and when they did get a sight of goal on the half-hour mark, Oli McBurnie failed to attack Jack Robinson's cross with enough conviction and his header drifted harmlessly wide of O'Leary's goal.
N'Diaye then got on the end of a well-worked move five minutes later but O'Leary rushed out to avert the danger to leave the home fans frustrated at the break.
Harry Cornick's 12th-minute shot was the only effort on target in the first half
Heckingbottom made a change, sending on McAtee in place of John Fleck, with the former registering the Blades' first shot on goal two minutes into the second period, but it was easily dealt with by O'Leary.
They had another half-chance after 55 minutes when a corner dropped to McBurnie but Cornick did enough to block his attempt.
Sander Berge then curled an effort over the bar as the Blades tried to crank up the pressure.
They finally made the breakthrough when N'Diaye found McAtee inside the penalty area and his left-footed effort flew across O'Leary and into the far corner.
Bristol City faded as the game went on but remained a danger on the counter-attack and the Blades spurned a big late chance to make the game more comfortable when Daniel Jebbison missed the target from point-blank range.
Sheffield United manager Paul Heckingbottom told BBC Radio Sheffield:
"A good win, a big win. The first half was a bit of a non-event. It was a stop-start game and City took their time on set plays and goal kicks which we've come to expect. We couldn't get the game going so we had to change things and the second half was much better and I think we thoroughly deserved it.
"Changing the shape stopped Bristol going man-for-man and that helped us get a foothold. We played with more energy and it was a much better performance. Not every minute of every game is going to go your way but, to a man, we remained calm and composed and we didn't fall foul to any traps by getting done on the break.
"We've done what we can which is win our games, keep chalking the games off, amassing more points and making it harder for the chasing teams."
Bristol City manager Nigel Pearson told BBC Radio Bristol:
"We worked very hard and unfortunately for us, the players that entered the fray from the bench didn't have an impact on the game. I expect them to work as hard as everyone else has worked tonight and we didn't get that.
"We conceded a sloppy goal again through a couple of players daydreaming. We should get something out of the game but we've not continued the levels of work when we've made changes so I'm a bit annoyed about that because I expect more and our young players have had a lot of praise this season but they've got to man up sometimes.
"We've ended up losing a game that we shouldn't do. We made them look really ordinary in the first half and second half we still had some really promising situations. All of our senior players were really good performers. We didn't do ourselves justice."