What Chris Wilder said about Sheffield United's play-off hopes after Norwich City defeat amid "narrative" admission
What Chris Wilder said about Sheffield United's play-off hopes after Norwich City defeat amid "narrative" admission
Chris Wilder remains insistent that Sheffield United’s season is not over yet despite their faint play-off hopes taking another huge blow at Norwich City last night. The Blades are still eight points adrift of sixth-placed Wrexham with just nine games still to play.
The Welsh side, who are still to come to Bramall Lane this month, also have a game in hand in which they can stretch their advantage while the amount of traffic between United and the top six has led many Unitedites writing off their hopes after a 2-1 defeat at Norwich.
The Blades have now taken one point from their last two games at the business end of the season, increasing the magnitude of clashes with Birmingham City and Wrexham before the next international break.
To even be in with a shot of the top six at this stage is remarkable in itself, considering the Blades were in a very real relegation scrap back in September when Wilder returned to his boyhood club.
But that hasn’t stemmed frustration from the terraces at their Norwich defeat, which saw them take the lead through Jairo Riedewald but then make life much harder for themselves through a series of poor decisions at Carrow Road.
What Chris Wilder said about Sheffield United's play-off hopes after Norwich City defeat amid "narrative" admission
The feel-good feeling United enjoyed after beating QPR at Loftus Road recently has evaporated quickly but Wilder is refusing to throw in the towel just yet. “I get the narrative over the last two performances,” he said, “even though I don’t go along with the idea it was a really poor performance on Saturday.
“We’ve gone from that feeling against QPR coming off the pitch to obviously a feeling now, where the narrative will be our season's over and whatever. And even if it is, or it becomes that way, it isn't ever over. We go right to the end and go right to the end against Derby [on the final day of the campaign].
Asked how he now assesses the wider picture of United’s season, with nine games to go, Wilder admitted: “Things change pretty quickly, don't they? They've changed in a week from our point of view.
“We've always been in touching distance and the division as it is, there are so many teams that are up and down. And possibly the only team that isn't really up and down are our opponents tonight [Norwich[ since the manager’s come in.
“We got close on so many times to cut it down and then we don't take that opportunity. We’ve missed a couple of opportunities over the last couple of games and if we want to win games of football we've got to take those opportunities, and be better than what we're doing.
“As I said it's not anything about an attitude, it's just our individual quality at the moment. We're not finding the flow, and we're not finding the control that we've had for the majority of the time that we've been here.”