Football: Heath to stay with embattled Blades

ADRIAN HEATH, the Sheffield United manager, who is coming under increasing pressure to keep his job, yesterday vowed to soldier on after his side's 2-1 home defeat by Bolton.

"I'll keep going," he said. "Obviously the bottom line of it is going to end up with results but I'll keep going and hopefully we'll turn the corner."

After the game, about 100 Blades fans staged a protest outside the ground with chants of "sack the board" and "where's the money gone?"

Heath admitted that he is likely to have to battle on with his current squad with United sitting just three points off the foot of the First Division. "I think the chairman made his comments quite clear the other day that the wage bill has got to be reduced, so it's difficult to bring people in. We'll have to get on with what we've got."

Gareth Farrelly, on loan from Everton, made a dream debut for Bolton with the opening goal after just 82 seconds. The Danish striker, Bo Hansen, restored the visitors' lead after Marcus Bent's 32nd-minute strike brought United level.

Barnsley showed their promotion credentials on Saturday with a 3-1 win at Fulham. Craven Cottage hosted Division One's only game of the day and it was Dave Bassett's side who stole the honours.

Wily campaigner Bassett, however, is too shrewd to start shouting about a possible return to the big-time for Barnsley, who enjoyed a brief spell in the Premiership two seasons ago.

Bassett said: "Who knows whether we can go up? It's a difficult league. We play Birmingham and Manchester City in our next two games but we are keeping up the momentum and going in the right direction."

Craig Hignett had a hand in all three Barnsley goals after Karlheinz Riedle had put the Londoners ahead in the 24th minute. A Kit Symons own goal started the comeback for Bassett's boys followed by two goals in six second-half minutes from Bruce Dyer and Robbie Van Der Laan.