Chris Wilder's honest verdict on Sheffield United's Tottenham Hotspur defeat after "miles off it" admission

Chris Wilder admitted he was “extremely disappointed” with the manner of Sheffield United’s defeat at home to Tottenham Hotspur this afternoon as the Blades signed off their Premier League season in familiar fashion. Dejan Kulusevski scored twice either side of Pedro Porro’s well-struck effort as United suffered their 28th defeat of a miserable relegation campaign.

It was a familiar story for the Blades as they squandered some good chances to go ahead in the game before being pegged back, with forwards Ben Brereton Diaz and Cameron Archer - both playing their final games for the club before returning to Villarreal and Aston Villa respectively this summer. Wilder was unhappy with Anel Ahmedhodzic’s defending for the first Spurs goal and admitted that it was a “pretty comfortable” afternoon for Spurs from that point on.

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“I'm extremely disappointed,” Wilder admitted. “I thought we went out of the back door a bit in the second half. It's been an incredibly tough season right the way through from start to finish but yet again it epitomised everything about this season. Support absolutely superb, get off to a really good start again. And yet again, it’s both boxes.

“We have glorious opportunities to go 2-0 up after 20 minutes, and there's only one team in it for the first 20 or 25 minutes. They have one opportunity through our bad play, we should play forward and go back inside. My right centre-half thinks it's right to go charging forward and open everything up, there's a tackle missed and a block missed. So you go one mistake, and think, yet again, can we cut that out by rectifying it?

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“It goes one, two, three and then you look at the Premier League and Kulusevski and the finish he finds into the bottom corner. And against the run of play we find ourselves 1-0 down and it put a pin in the balloon straight away, with what it did for the boys' confidence and belief. And I think you saw the attitude of the team and the group really, it shone right through in that particular moment. And I've got to say it was pretty comfortable for Spurs for 70 minutes.”

United welcomed back strikers Oli McBurnie and Daniel Jebbison after their injury absences, with the latter getting his first 20 minutes of senior action all season after being sidelined with issues arising from a pre-season blood clot. “We've got a pretty strong bench there but Oli Mac can only do 15 minutes, Rhian [Brewster] at the moment can only do 25 or so, Max Lowe can't do as many as we'd like. So physically we are absolutely miles off it, absolutely miles. There's so many things that have to be put right, there's a lot of work to be done, but we'll do it. I'll get it done.”