Brazilian hot-shot Marcelo scored twice to hand promotion hopefuls West Brom their first league defeat in six matches.

West Brom had won four games on the bounce, but youngster Lee Morris scored his first league goal to fire United into the lead against the run of play after 28 minutes.

Paul Devlin's free-kick was flicked on to 18-year-old Morris and the young midfielder showed terrific skill to juggle the ball past a crowd of players into the area before volleying home.

Moments later Marcelo doubled Sheffield's lead with a glancing header from Graham Stuart's free-kick which just sneaked past West Brom keeper Paul Whitehead.

Then in the second half the hard-working Marcelo pounced to grab his second.

Whitehead parried Marcelo's first shot and did even better to block Curtis Woodhouse's follow-up, but could do nothing to stop the Brazilian sliding the ball under him.

West Brom had dominated the opening exchanges before the first goal and strikers Lee Hughes and Fabian DeFreitas had proved a handful for the United back four.

A rush of blood from United keeper Alan Kelly presented Hughes with an early chance. The league's leading goalscorer beat Kelly to the ball on the edge of the area, but fired just over.

Then a delicate back-flick from Hughes sent DeFreitas surging through on goal, but Kelly made a good save.

From the resulting corner, Kelly's punch fell kindly to James Quinn, but the Irish international keeper made up for his mistake with an excellent block.

Andy Campbell went close with a point-blank shot which flew inches wide of the far post as United fought back. Then Hughes powered clear of the home defence after picking up the ball from Curtis Woodhouse's slip, but Kelly kept his nerve to make another good save.

Even better was to come from the Blades keeper when he somehow twisted his body in mid-air to save Quinn's shot from six yards.

Teams:

Sheff Utd: Kelly, Derry, Nilsen, Woodhouse, Sandford, Holdsworth, Morris (Twiss 87), Campbell, Marcelo (Jacobsen 90), Devlin, Stuart (Ford 85).

Goals: Morris 28, Marcelo 36, 50.

West Brom: Whitehead, Holmes, Potter, Bortolazzi, Burgess, Carbon, Quinn, Sneekes, De Freitas (Angel 68), Hughes, Kilbane (Murphy 68).

Subs Not Used: Flynn.

Booked: Bortolazzi, Burgess.

Att: 16,566

Ref: E Wolstenholme (Blackburn).