Sheffield United boss impressed with Rotherham United's approach to beating 'jaded' Blades

He also insisted there was no complacency from his players, just a night when they were lacking their usual energy.

The Blades were looking to follow up a brilliant 5-2 win at home to Burnley but instead lost 1-0 to a Ben Wiles goal.

The Millers got their gameplan right and Heckingbottom said he had told his players before kick-off that beating them would be harder than overcoming the top-of-the-table Clarets.

"Burnley are a good side but straight after the game the message was this would be a tougher game," said manager Heckingbottom. "It's a totally different set-up, a totally different team and approach.

"We were prepared. There were no surprises from our point of view.

"The only surprise for us was our performance. I'm not sitting here saying how bad it was but it looked a jaded one."

With Wiles dropping into what at times was a six-man midfield with wing-backs Peter Kioso and Cohen Bramall, the Blades found themselves going more direct more often than they would usually like and not getting much joy that way either.

"In the second half I thought we could have played from the back when Wes (goalkeeper, Foderingham, the goalkeeper) was going to Oli McBurnie.

"We started the second half well but we had to change because Rotherham's (central) midfield four – I'll class Ben Wiles in that – were dropping on too many second balls and we weren't playing out as much.

"Ollie Rathbone was looking to step on we weren't brave enough to play so we went long and played into their hands.

"We changed shape and got the extra body in there and went with a four so we could start playing again, and started taking it from the goalkeeper again."