Kabba's comeback complete as Blades reap the rewards

Sheffield United 2 Ipswich Town

As the striker left the field with a ruptured Achilles tendon, his team, Sheffield United, went on to miss out on a place in the Premiership by losing to Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Before he was able to return to the first team in February of this year, the 24-year-old also suffered a broken ankle and tendinitis. During his absence, Sheffield, according to many of their fans, have stagnated, missing out on promotion - or even a play-off place - in each of the past two seasons. But now both player and club are in rude health. Sheffield have already established a four-point lead in the Championship, winning all but one of their seven games to date, and on Saturday Kabba was in irresistible form, scoring both goals in what turned out to be a routine victory.

The first was a crisply struck angled drive that took a deflection, the second from an injury-time breakaway. In between, Kabba found time to draw two bookable fouls from his marker, Sito Castro, and even conceded a penalty by fouling the defender.

Had Darren Currie converted the spot-kick Ipswich would have been level, but as Joe Royle, the Ipswich manager, admitted, the midfielder's weak effort rather summed up his team's day and they never otherwise looked like scoring.

The same could hardly be said of Kabba, who already has six goals to his name this season. "I'm getting lots of chances at the moment," said Kabba. "If I keep getting the chances I can keep scoring."

The challenge for Kabba is to persuade his manager, Neil Warnock, he is worth his place when the likes of Danny Webber and Paul Shaw return from injury.

"I've got the shirt at the moment and I'm hungry for goals and success. We've got the team to get promoted and I want to be playing in the Premiership," he said.

Many more performances of this calibre from Kabba and that is exactly where he will be playing.

Goals: Kabba (4) 1-0; (90) 2-0.

Sheffield United (4-4-2): Kenny; Bromby, Short, Morgan, Unsworth; Ifill (Gillespie, 76), Montgomery, Jagielka, Quinn; Kabba, Shipperley (Tonge, 86). Substitutes not used: Nalis, Kozluk, Armstrong.

Ipswich Town (4-5-1): Price; Sito Castro, Naylor, De Vos, McEveley; Peters, Currie, Magilton, Horlock, Bowditch (McDonald, 65); Parkin. Substitutes not used: Supple (gk), Wilnis, Richards, Garvan.

Referee: P Dowd (Staffordshire).

Booked: Ipswich Naylor, Sito, Horlock, Price.

Sent off: Ipswich Sito.

Man of the match: Kabba.

Attendance: 21,059.