Paul Heckingbottom rues a 'bad day at the office' for Sheffield United

United, beaten just twice in their previous 12 league games, took an early lead through Sander Berge, but City stormed back to score four unanswered goals.

Viktor Gyokeres soon levelled and the Sky Blues went onto produce a brilliant attacking performance in the second half and ran riot with Callum O'Hare - brilliant alongside Gyokeres - netting twice and Matt Godden also finding the net as United, 4-1 victors over Middlesbrough in midweek, were handed a reality check by a dominant play-off contender.

Heckingbottom, who confirmed that substitute Oli McBurnie went off late with a dead leg, said: "It was a bad day at the office and we cannot have any complaints. We got beaten by the better team. The one thing that summed the game up was that we got beat 4-1 and I thought Wes was our man of the match.

"That is probably a reflection of the game. Coventry are a good side who pose teams problems and we spoke about that in the week. There was not much in it in the first half, it was an end-to-end high energy game which I expected. When the second goal went in, they were creating too many chances every time they went forward and we weren't.

"We were beaten by the better team. But we did not half give them a helping hand with some goals. We also had too many of our better players who have been playing very well all have a bad game on the same day. When that happens, it is going to be very difficult and we did not dig ourselves out of it and claw our way back in."