What Sheffield United boss Paul Heckingbottom said about his future after club-record loss to Newcastle United

The Blades plumbed the depths in an embarrassing 8-0 defeat, when they went to pieces against a Newcastle side who recorded their best ever away success.

It prompted questions about the future of the former Leeds United and Barnsley manager.

After United’s recent loss at Tottenham, some reports in the national media suggested that Chris Wilder could be set for a return to Bramall Lane to replace the current Blades chief.

On renewed questions over his future, Heckingbottom said: "I can’t answer any of that. If it is anything to do with my future, you are asking the wrong person.

"My job is to manage the football department, from top to bottom, that’s it. Questions on that, no problem. When there’s questions about me, you have probably got to take it up with someone else.

"We have no problems here. Stories are always stories, you can get used to it. The amount of the questions I get asked about anything, I don’t know if they are true or not.

"There might be questions about signings, changes, things behind the scenes. It’s part of parcel of being in this job. Some of them, I know nothing about (answers).”

On a wretched result for his side, he continued: "The first half we had to change the way we wanted to play, set up a bit differently. We went in 3-0 down and that was purely down to our organisation.

"We made changes at half time to chase the game and regardless of mistakes, mistakes lead to goals. The things we have to put right are the bits off the ball.

"We understand the league we are in, we've lost three points regardless but as long as learn from the nature of the defeat and what went wrong then all we have lost is three points.

"You could see moments where Newcastle out-fought us and out-ran us. That is not acceptable. We want to compete. There is still a level of competition we expect. We know they have top class players but there is an expectation from us that we are here to compete.

"The organisation is on me but it is not like we don't work on it.

"We prepare for moments like this, we prepare for coming up against top teams and we prepare for our performances not being good enough. Our season won't be defined by this game so long as we take the things from it we need to and address things."