'We can't over-react': But did lethargic Sheffield United blow a big opportunity against Bristol City

It comes to something when going top of the Championship can be a bad day, yet that was how it felt when the final whistle blew on their 1-1 draw with Bristol City.

“It's an absolutely shocking position we're in,” said manager Chris Wilder sarcastically as the fretting began elsewhere.

There was no getting away from it, though. Wilder objected to the phrase, but a draw was a missed opportunity. There will be others in this three-way Championship title race so it is crucial to keep them in perspective.

The Blades were flat – low on energy, poor in their decision-making, pedestrian in closing down the spaces the play-off-chasing Robins joyfully played in. Wilder's side appear to have not yet fully worked out how to adapt to Hamza Choudhury's fondness for picking the ball from between his centre-backs, leaving a broad area for his holding midfield partner – with Vinicius Souza injured, it was Sydie Peck on Tuesday – to patrol alone.

Bramall Lane was not angry, not even really anxious, just waiting for a spark. When Gustavo Hamer and Rhian Brewster came off the bench to provide it, the crowd fanned the flames enthusiastically, but their team soon let it fizzle out.

Save for a seven-minute spell when Hamer was picking passes and Brewster making runs to turn 0-0 into 1-0, it was all a bit... meh. When Femi Seriki picked Jesurun Rak-Sakyi out at the end of a flowing first-half move, the winger looked ponderous, and his touch allowed George Tanner to tackle.

When Chowdhury cut out Yu Hirakawa's cross, Harrison Burrows was so deep on his heels the Japanese wing-back was able to run back onto the pitch he had spilled off, and hold the left-back off to win a throw-in.

Even the Blades' brilliant goalkeeper Michael Cooper was not immune, making an outstanding low save to claw a Sinclair Armstrong header back from what looked like above the goalline at 0-0, yet letting a second-half cross squirm under him, saved by Seriki's alertness.

So how can salvaging a point on a night like that be a bad thing?

Well, the problem was leaders Leeds United had opened the front door for the Blades by surprisingly losing at Portsmouth on Sunday. For Sheffield United to have kicked off three points clear would have really cranked up the pressure on them at home to Millwall the following night.

And Burnley opened the back door, by drawing at home to West Bromwich Albion. As the final whistle blew on that, Sheffield United led 1-0, prising the gap to the Clarets a little wider.

That they were still ahead when their own game ticked into its 90th minute made Mark Sykes' equaliser extra galling.

“When you get that close, you really should make sure,” admitted Wilder. “The goal is one mistake, two mistakes, three mistakes, four mistakes, five mistakes.

“You can maybe go one to two but anything above two to three to four ultimately ends up in the back of the net.”

The medical men had deemed Hamer fit enough for “30 minutes absolute max” but he came on in the 54th, and needed just seven to make a decisive impact, picking the latest of his forward passes from the centre-back area. Brewster quickly helped it on, Campbell slipped it past Max O'Leary.

But the Championship's masters of the 1-0 sat back and invited pressure rather than going for the throat. Bristol City kept them hanging for a while, but eventually RSVPed.

Wilder – like fellow promotion veterans Daniel Farke and Scott Parker – is not one to get carried away. Maybe Sunday's Steel City derby might be different if he has been able to enjoy a few celebratory sherbets, but on Tuesday night it was commonsense and context all the way.

“We can't over-react,” he wisely insisted. “We sat too deep, it didn't allow us to get enough pressure on the ball.

“They found their pockets (of space) too easily and we got stretched as a team from back to front. If that happens you're not going to be able to put any pressure on and start winning key areas.

“They had control of the game but still we created the best chances in the first half.

“We just didn't do enough from an energy point of view and when you haven't got that energy, mentally you're not as sharp as you want to be and you make poor decisions off the back of that.”

With nine games to go, clear heads are essential, panic calamitous.