Sheffield United: '˜Jekyll and Hyde' Blades leave Chris Wilder with familiar feeling after West Brom defeat

United dominated the opening period of the game against their fellow promotion contenders, taking a deserved lead through David McGoldrick's early strike.

But after failing to stretch their lead, Wilder's side found themselves back on level terms when Gareth Barry equalised before Kieran Gibbs lifted the visitors above United into third.

"I'm just really surprised to go from that performance, after 30 or so minutes, to what came afterwards," Wilder said. "It was like Jekyll and Hyde.

"We can dip between games but not usually during them, that's not like us. That was really hard for me to take.Â

"You've got to kill the game off. If it was roles reversed, if West Brom had had that dominant period, then it would have been damage limitation for the opposition."

Although Wilder expressed concerns about United's loss of momentum, he appeared more irritated by their inability to put Darren Moore's expensively assembled team to the sword during a one-sided first-half.

Highlighting how the same issue had also seen them drop points against Sheffield Wednesday, Stoke and Leeds in recent weeks, he continued: "I'm disappointed and trying to get to the bottom of it. It's a head scratching moment for me.Â

"The mentality of the group was a little bit flat. They seemed to be thinking 'it's not our night, let's get out of here.'

"That's been told to them, it's never dressed up. We have an inability to be clinical in big moments."

"It's happened before and it's something we've got to try and sort," Wilder added. "It's something we're going to have very hard on to work at getting better at because, to be honest, we've spoken about the same things before.

"The first 30 or 35 minutes, we dominated a really good side. We should have been 2-0 or 3-0 up. But it was the same old scenario. We drive the opposition back and limited really good players to next to nothing. We should have been out of sight."

Wilder will attempt to address the situation next month, with the transfer window shaping up to be a defining moment of the season. Only seven points separate the division's leading six teams, many of whom are expected to invest heavily in their squads during the New Year.

Moore, a former team mate of Wilder's at Bradford City, said: "There won't be many teams who come here and get a result like that. I'm very respectful of Chris, as a person and a manager, because of the job he's doing here. They're a good side, a very good side, and they always make it difficult as well."

United player ratings from defeat