'It's irritating me' - Everything Chris Wilder said about Sheffield United's performance against Norwich City
Sheffield United fell to an early goal again and ended up losing 3-1 to Norwich City at Bramall Lane
Sheffield United manager Chris Wilder admitted to being ‘irritated’ by his side’s lacklustre performance in losing to Norwich City at Bramall lane.
The Blades went a goal down in the eighth minute through Anthony Musaba’s opener - the third league game in a row where United had conceded early in the match - but fought back to equalise through Patrick Bamford’s fine finish midway through the first half.
By that stage, the home side were looking relatively comfortable but Norwich re-established the lead just before the break when Mohamed Toure ran through and slipped the ball under Michael Cooper.
When Norwich scored their third, they ended the game as a contest with United barely laying a glove on the visitors from the moment Mathias Kvistgaarden slotted in.
Bamford had one final chance but was tackled as he raced through on goal and that was as close as Blades fans got to a grandstand finish, though few would deny Norwich were deserving of all three points... least of all Wilder.
What did Chris Wilder say about Sheffield United’s display against Norwich?
“We made it pretty comfortable for Norwich. They managed the game well. They managed the game better than us.
“The goals that we've conceded are really poor, even though the third one was upside, which you'll see when that gets replayed. But even taking that out, I think Philip would have been disappointed if he had not won the game today. I don't think we deserved to, especially in the last 20-25 minutes, get anything out of them.
“It never looked like getting back into the game and putting pressure on them and asking them the question.
“I thought they started better than us and got their goal detail that we didn't get right. It's a great finish, but it's on us that we snuff out, Romelle comes narrow and deals with that, game plan and stuff like that.
“So, the detail of the positioning of the player should have made it a lot more difficult for the boy to get his shot away. He's had a free shot near to the box. It's not a centre-half's fault.
“It's not Hamza’s fault. It's a little bit of detail, positioning-wise. We'll learn off the back of that.
We get ourselves back in, score a good goal.
“From there, we wrestled the initiative off them and it was on us. We got the press right. We didn't allow them to get out.
“They're dangerous on the counter. The front three, especially, in my opinion, possibly the best front three, one of the best in the division, in how they play. But we never allowed them to get the ball up to them, because we shut that down.
“We wrestled the initiative back. You're going into 43 minutes and the game has just turned on its head. We don't get those opportunities to score those goals.
“They've had the opportunity to score the goals. We've not dropped to the second ball. We've got three people around.
“We don't deal with the ball up in the air. It's their cue and then we have to stop the run and we have to defend better. Skipper has to defend better in that situation.
“The ball goes clean through and he scores. It's a pin in the balloon all the way around the place. We said it was a good atmosphere, a good environment to play in.
“We felt we were in the game. They came out second half. We turned the ball over cheap.
“Same again. Same things we were talking about. Regardless of the offside decision or not, they were better than us in the second half.
“As I said, it's irritating me. I should imagine maybe a stronger word that I would possibly use in that changing room.
“What I'm saying to you now, I didn't enjoy the last 20, 25 minutes. It never looked like getting back into the game. The game became too easy for them and that for me is not how I want to see the team play.”