Sheffield United equipped to ride out inevitable slump in Premier League form

The Blades drew 0-0 at Aston Villa in a lacklustre restart to the campaign they so impressed in before the coronavirus shutdown. They followed it with 3-0 defeats at Newcastle United and Manchester United, all of which came in the Premier League.

Their first game at Bramall Lane also ended in defeat, but the performance in the FA Cup quarter-final against Arsenal deserved better than to lose it 2-1 to a stoppage-time goal.

Wilder thinks it should be the start of his players regaining their self-belief.

“It should be,” he said. “I’m no spin (doctor), it gets said if I think players have let themselves down and the team down.

“These players have not let anybody down at all. This dip (in form) could have happened at any time.

“I was told in July by other managers we were going to have to handle disappointment and it might be for three, four, five games.

“Perhaps what we should have done is lose a few games at Christmas and be bottom and then win one and people would pat us on the back. But I didn’t really want to take that approach!”

Sheffield United were in good form going into the enforced break, losing one of 10 games and with a game in hand to take them into the top five which, unless Manchester City can overturn their European ban, is a Champions League place.

It has been more difficult since. Centre-back Jack O’Connell played every minute of the first phase Premier League campaign, but has not featured since after colliding with goalkeeper Dean Henderson in training, while European rivals such as Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United have seen key players recover from injury. The new temporary rules allowing more substitutes and bigger squads favour those better-resourced clubs too.

“We pushed Arsenal to the limit defensively on Sunday,” said Wilder. “They’ve had to work hard and do things right from the defensive side to get through to a semi-final.

“It was a performance good enough to win a cup tie.”

The lack of self-belief showed at times in the football the Blades played at the weekend.

“We wanted to be effective and efficient and I thought we were but just possibly because of a few results and performances there are a few lads just a bit short of belief,” said Wilder. “They take an extra touch they don’t need to take and they just dip out on a little bit of quality they’ve definitely got. If we just had the last pass out but encouraging signs for us.

“(But) they have put in brilliant performances for this club for quite a number of games.

“David McGoldrick showed his quality and Oli McBurnie was getting back to his form of pre-lockdown. It was just a little bit anxious, a little bit rushed by a couple of boys, not seeing things as clearly as you do when you’re on top of your game.

“In terms of a lot of aspects but the bit that really does seal the tie is the quality we’re after. If we’d found that I think we could have won the game.”

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