Paul Heckingbottom echoes Sheffield United fans' thoughts after sorry display v Bournemouth

Boss Paul Heckingbottom echoed many Sheffield United supporters' thoughts after his side's sorry performance in defeat to relegation rivals AFC Bournemouth at Bramall Lane this afternoon. The Blades went into the game hoping to continue their positive momentum from before the international break but were outclassed against a fellow side embroiled in the scrap to survive in the Premier League.

On an afternoon when they could have escaped the bottom three, if they beat Bournemouth and Luton lost to Crystal Palace, the opposite of those results left them four points adrift of the fourth-bottom Hatters. More concerning was the manner of their defeat, with just two shots on target - one coming minutes from the end, from substitute Will Osula, and the other a consolation in the 97th minute from fellow replacement Oli McBurnie.

Sorry United player ratings from 3-1 Bournemouth defeat

Bournemouth, in contrast, were much brighter and had 23 shots on goal, 11 of which were on target. They will make the long journey back south boosted by a big win at the home of one of their rivals, but perhaps disappointed that the margin of victory was not far greater.

"If we give goals away like that we're not going to win games in this league, we know that," said Heckingbottom. "We started poorly from our point of view and it put us on the back foot and we never really recovered. We gave the second goal away before we could make changes at half-time and the nature of the third goal... we're not going to win.

"But we can't hide behind mistakes. We know we need to play better than that, we've got to get it out of our heads before the next game because that's below the standards we've set for ourselves and which we've played to for the majority of this season.

"We kept giving them the ball back. We need to be better. For us to get results we need virtually every player to be at their best and to have some big moments. Today we didn't, we had too many who dropped below our standards. We needed to start better and be more on the front foot to get control of the game."