Sheffield United’s players will be looking to show a quick reaction to last night’s nightmare showing at Wrexham as they handed out some late Christmas gifts to the opposition on their way to a 5-3 defeat. The Blades led 3-2 at the break before coming out of a topsy-turvy game on the wrong side.
United were not able to cope with Wrexham’s front three of two-goal former Blade Kieffer Moore, ex-Wednesday man Josh Windass – who also got on the scoresheet – and Nathan Broadhead, as they conceded three times in the second half to return from north Wales with nothing.
The Blades don’t have much time to lick their wounds before they return to action on Monday evening at Stoke City, with the message clear from boss Chris Wilder: “We’ve got to dust ourselves down and go again and be a lot better than what we were.”
In many ways United’s showing at Wrexham was reminiscent of their issues earlier in the season, when they were undone not by moments of magic from the opposition but of madness from themselves.
A recent run of form looked to have consigned that habit of shooting themselves in the foot into history but it reared its ugly head again against Wrexham, with an own goal and penalty concession from loan defender Tyler Bindon summing up a particularly chastening evening.
In between Moore was given the freedom of the Blades penalty box to head home possibly the simplest goal he will score all season from a corner and only his second, a brilliant finish into the top corner, had the feel of being well-worked rather than being handed over by United.
“Five really poor goals,” added Wilder, “and you can’t concede five goals at any level, wherever it is, and expect to get a result out of a game. The boys never turned in. They kept going towards the end. We had a couple of opportunities towards the end, but like I said, we were open.
“We were fragile. There was a fragility about our back four. I’m having to change shape to cope with it. I shouldn’t really have to change shape. We should be able to deal with those situations, those players at the top of the pitch, but we never got a grip of them. You have to have a base to start somewhere, and we have had that.
“Defensively, we’ve been pretty good and then we go and concede five. So, no arguments about the result. No excuses about anything else apart from we have to look at ourselves and do so much better without the ball.
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“It isn’t always about the back four. We never got any pressure on their three centre-halves, especially the outside one. Callum Doyle has just picked a pass all evening and we have to get up to that ball.
“We never got up to it. We never found the energy to get up to it, and allowed them to create us problems. More so than possibly any other team has created or posed us so far this season when I’ve been in charge.”
