Man City loan star reassures Sheffield United fans over mini-form slump

Tommy Doyle has reassured Sheffield United supporters that he and his teammates are "not panicking" about their recent form or promotion prospects, despite back-to-back defeats blowing the race for automatic promotion wide open.

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United's once-huge lead over third place has been whittled down to just four points, after defeats to promotion rivals Middlesbrough and Millwall in their last two outings, putting extra importance on this weekend's home clash against another Premier League hopeful in Watford.

Boss Paul Heckingbottom insisted after the Millwall game that United knew what had gone wrong and would not "sweep it under the carpet" ahead of the Hornets clash.

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And Doyle, the Manchester City loanee, insisted: "We just need to go back to the basics again, I think. We wanted to win the game but we didn't. We got back in it twice, which is frustrating. 

"We're not panicking, we're not worried in any way. We just need to get back to playing how we do best. And hopefully we'll do that at the weekend.

"It's football. It happens. We don't want to lose games, we know we can't win them all but it's about minimising how many you lose. We're frustrated with the last game, it wasn't good enough by our standards, but we have to accept that and work on what we need to do to improve. And I'm sure we'll get back on track."

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Insisting that United's players have not "switched off", midfielder Doyle - who scored United's first equaliser at The Den - said: "We just want to put things right. We're not panicking, but we have to do that and get back on track. 

"We have another game to do so and we're going to look to improve on things we've dropped off on a little bit. I don't think it's been anything massive, just little things in tactical positioning that maybe we didn't do as well as we did at the start. Normally, we're tough to play against. 

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"We have been, for most of the season, defensively solid too. Maybe we've taken our eye off it a little bit but sometimes you have to remind yourself of the values that you have."