No excuses for Sheffield United, insists Aaron Ramsdale

Premier League and Championship teams may have headed into the start of a new season with comparatively little preparation time, but that fact simply does not wash with the 22-year-old.

After an opening night when the Blades were second best to an energetic Wolves side, whose last game in 2019-20 was on August 11, Ramsdale said: “Teams have had less pre-seasons and games than us and we have done everything we can.

“We are in good shape and we just got hit very early and could not get back into the game.

“On a personal note, I have played a lot of football in a short space of time with two games away (with England Under-21s) and a game and a half with Sheffield United.

“That (lack of competitive action) is just looking for an excuse and we cannot make them. We just were not good enough in the first five minutes and got punished by a good team.”

The former Bournemouth custodian – on his second debut for the Blades – was one of the few home players to convince in Monday night’s disappointing 2-0 loss, although he derived limited satisfaction from any such talk.

He would much rather have had little to do on his first league game for the hosts at Bramall Lane and been discussing a positive result for the hosts, who were punished for ‘six minutes of madness’ in his view.

A mistake from John Lundstram was punished by way of Raul Jiminez’s clinicial opener and poor marking served up a second on a plate for Romain Saiss, with good keeping from Ramsdale keeping the score down after that.

He added: “I am there to do that and I kept the scoreline down and it gave us a chance to get back into the game. But it is easy to say that at 2-0 down.

“That is the most upsetting thing. I will go back in and watch if I could have done anything better with the goals and then we will work on the training ground to try and put it right for Thursday and Monday.

“We are all honest lads in there and we will be the first to put our hands up and say we have made a mistake or I should have saved or things like that.

“It was six minutes of madness. You cannot give any team a leg up in the Premier League. Especially not a two-nil margin, which is not like Sheffield United. Last season, they started so well.”