Sheffield United’s disappointment with draw at Arsenal is testament to how far they have come

His was not the expression of a “just happy to be here” manager of a newly-promoted club that had taken a point from last year’s Europa League finalists.

Nor was it the look of a manager who, in January, has almost enough points to avoid relegation – two more wins should just about do it.

Wilder wore the grumpy demeanour of someone who is always demanding more, never happy to sit still – like all the best football managers.

He even fired a little warning shot to that effect at those players dallying over new contracts.

The positive spin on Sheffield United’s 1-1 draw in north London is they took a point from a game where they did not play their best by manning the barricades in the second half and grabbing an equaliser due in no small part to Wilder’s positive substitutions.

Mo Besic played the ball to Callum Robinson and when the cross came over, Billy Sharp was making enough of a nuisance of himself to force Ainsley Maitland-Niles to head to John Fleck rather than clear. The Scot did the rest, hitting the ball into the turf so it looped over Bernd Leno.

Wilder is not interested in positive spin, he deals in plain-speaking. His players cannot be the sort of snowflakes unable to produce when their manager gets heated. Players who need their best performances cuddling out of them would be well advised to avoid Bramall Lane.

“The result is better than our performance,” said Wilder, repeating word for word his post-West Ham United verdict.

“I’ve just got to look at my team and the standards they have set. It was one of our poorer performances with the ball. They gave the ball away, we gave the ball away.

“I’m pleased we took a point because we always give ourselves a chance with our attitude. We have to play a lot better than that, though, to pick up points over a period of time.”

For a decade-and-a-half, the Gunners have been the sort of team aggressive opponents relish taking on. “The players never smelt (the opportunity) after the first 10 minutes,” bemoaned Wilder.

Against teams with Arsenal’s undoubted technical qualities, you have to take your chances. Lys Mousset missed two in the early stages.

The Blades looked at their most threatening down the left at that time, preying on Maitland-Niles, who gave the ball to Enda Stevens trying something ambitious and was relieved when Mousset headed over. He did the same again when Jack O’Connell nodded a 10th-minute corner to him. The offside flag was up, but video assistant referee Lee Mason would have done well to find a body part he could draw a line through that was behind the home defence.

Rather than go for the throat, the Blades backed off.

Like Mousset, Pierre Emerick-Aubameyang’s 18-year-old stand-in, Gabriel Martinelli, needed more than two chances to score, but the Gunners carved out three for him.

His shot from Nicolas Pepe’s cross – made possible by a beautiful pass from Alexandre Lacazette, dropping off the front as if to copy the man who one can only assume is the French international’s hero, the injured David McGoldrick – was almost volleyed square from a tight angle. His snatched shot when the winger picked him out again in a more favourable position also ended up the wrong side of the post.

Defences then got on top, leaving both goalkeepers under-employed, but with half-time approaching another Arsenal 18-year-old, Bukayo Saka, created a chance Martinelli could not miss.

If the 1-0 half-time scoreline seemed harsh on the Blades, Wilder was having none of it. His players were made to wait what felt like four or five minutes for Arsenal to emerge for the second half, which even in January was preferable to being locked in a room with their manager.

It provoked a slight improvement, Stevens putting in a low cross Mousset’s leg was not quite long enough to stretch to and Granit Xhaka clearing O’Connell’s header off the line, but it was far from the second half the manager had in mind.

O’Connell, whose season has been good enough to link him with a transfer to Tottenham Hotspur, can consider himself fortunate neither Mike Dean, on his 500th Premier League appearance, nor Mason took a harsher view of him catching Pepe in the penalty area, and that Lacazette did not punish him either from a free-kick when the centre-back clattered into Saka just outside the D.

Wilder switched to a 3-4-1-2, then a diamond formation to try to inspire a goal.

When Oli McBurnie headed a corner at Leno in the 82nd minute, it was a warning to Arsenal that for all their possession, the game was not over. A minute later, Fleck pulled level with Mousset as the Blades top Premier League goal-scorer this season.

For the brief period that followed, they looked the more likely winners, McBurnie and Fleck having shots blocked, and Leno finally being made to earn his keep by Besic.

“If we had have won, then I don’t think it would have been a deserved win,” reflected Wilder.

Sheffield United have to be better having picked up only one Premier League win since Christmas, but Wilder will not let up until that happens – or even when it does.