Chris Wilder calls on Sheffield United's senior players to stand up and make better decisions after 1-0 defeat to Everton

The Blades manager had few complaints about his side's attitude in the 1-0 Boxing Day defeat at home to Everton, but their use of the ball was a very different story.

He has called his senior players to stand up and drag the team out of what is looking an increasingly impossible predicament.

Whilst the hosts defended well, they never looked like scoring against a Toffees side who went second in the Premier League with their victory, courtesy of a Gylfi Sigurdsson goal.

“It was a tight game, a lack of chances on both sides,” reflected Wilder.

“I'm just more disappointed with us in terms of our quality.

“We can play, we can move it around teams but we never built any pressure or momentum because our decision-making and our quality was poor.

“When it's our turn to play and hurt the opposition we never seemed to build that momentum up.”

The Blades were pushing for Europa League qualification until the final weeks of last season, but are now adrift at the bottom of the table with just two points from their first 15 matches. They have lost Jack O'Connell and Sander Berge to injury, and goalkeeper Dean Henderson returned to Manchester United at the end of a season-long loan, but the core of the side has been added to since 2019-20.

“I feel we have got it in us,” said a downbeat Wilder.

“After lockdown we played Chelsea, Tottenham and Wolves off the back of some poor performances and played so much better in all those games (winning all three).

“This season yet again I'm a broken record. There's a couple of performances where we didn't deserve anything but if we'd showed a little bit more belief, more composure and more quality we'd have had a much better chance of affecting the game.

“You try everything as a manager but you can't play the game for them.

“Nobody gave me or anybody I know a magic pill, they have to find it themselves, stick their chest out and accept the responsibility. Yeah, they're up against world-class players but they showed what they can do last season.

“I'd take the criticism away from some of the younger players but my experienced players, my main men, are not playing anywhere near, consistently, the standard thy have in the past.”

Wilder pointed out that most of his senior players were rewarded for last season's performances with new contracts, but they are not earning them in 2020-21.

The manager changed his starting formation for the first time this season to a 3-4-2-1, changing back to their normal 3-5-2 in the second half, but he feels talk of shape and tactics are a smokescreen sheltering his under-performing players.

“This really is not a system situation, this is when the ball breaks there's so many qualities I really admire about my team, they're competitive and they desperately want to win but there hasn't been the other part of the game that allows you to get big results against the odds.”

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