Chris Wilder's warning to Sheffield United players after 5-0 Aston Villa defeat hammers another nail in coffin

Chris Wilder has warned Sheffield United's players that they have to accept every bit of criticism that comes their way after Saturday's 5-0 home hammering by Aston Villa at Bramall Lane. The latest humbling, combined with results for many of the Blades' relegation rivals, left Wilder's men 10 points off safety and hammered another nail into their relegation coffin.

While safety remains a mathematical possibility, with a trip to fellow strugglers Luton Town up next, this was an evening that exposed the dearth of confidence and belief in United's ranks as well as their on-field deficiencies. The half-time and final whistles were greeted by choruses of boos from the terraces and Wilder apologised to supporters afterwards, admitting his side had "let them down".

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"When you play the game at that level, in front of 30-odd thousand, it can drain you," said Wilder. "It drains you as a player and it drains you as a team. The quickest players look the slowest, every pass becomes an incredibly difficult pass to play and you look slow. Everything’s a reaction and not an anticipation. I get that people will say: 'Oh we didn’t lay a glove on them'. We were second best all afternoon and most certainly when they went 4-0 up.

"As the manager I have to stand in that technical area and I’ve been stood there plenty of times with people singing our names. I've said it plenty of times, everybody's always prepared and willing to say decent things about you when it’s going well. And when you have days like this, you have to accept everything that comes your way and it’s well and truly deserved.

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"The players are on the floor. They're on the floor. They’re not doing cartwheels in there, they're not thinking about what they're doing later on and stuff like that. And if I felt they were, then they won’t be part of the journey going forward. It’s a difficult one to take. People say that you don’t care and you’re passive and you’re this and you’re that and you’re the other.

"And if it looks like that, then you have to accept that. But we’re on the floor and a reaction is needed. It’s going to be a long long week for us and as always we have to, I have to, put it right. Whether I picked the right team or not, whether I picked the right tactics, right personnel. I have to question all those decisions. When we went out at half past five, I wasn't going to make it harder for myself by picking the team that I didn’t think was the right team or people that couldn't do jobs for us or the wrong formation.

"I picked a team that I felt could go and win a game of football. I didn’t see it coming so I have to question all that stuff with my coaches, and the players have got to get their head down and and take the medicine."