Sheffield United boss gives his verdict after Brighton loss
Chris Wilder admitted his side’s game plan went out of the window after Mason Holgate’s red card.
The Blades were reduced to ten men in the 13th minute after Holgate was sent off for a high tackle on Kaoru Mitoma.
Brighton went on to win the game 5-0, and the Blades remain rooted to the bottom of the Premier League table after an 18th defeat of the season.
On the challenge, Wilder said. “It was a very strong challenge, and the game has moved on. Some people won’t want the game to move on and expect physical contact, excessive force or whatever you want to call it; winning the ball and challenging in that way is deemed not acceptable, so we’ve got no excuses or nowhere to hide, the referee gave a yellow card straight away so obviously he doesn’t think it is a red card, but then goes over to the monitor, it got slowed down which never makes it look good.
“He’s apologised to the boys, he understands it, he’s an experienced pro. He’s got it wrong. I want us to be competitive, and I want us to be on the front foot and win tackles. You can’t have a passive game; it’s not a passive game, it’s competitive, it’s a contact sport, but we have to get that right. Mason has to get that right, and obviously, it’s a huge setback for us in the approach to the overall game.”
Brighton were 2-0 up at half-time, Facundo Buonanotte and Danny Welbeck scoring in the space of fur minutes, something that Wilder admitted has happened to side far too often. “There are things we must look at,” said Wilder. “Too many times, we’ve gone from one to two quickly. The goals in the first half are not great goals”
The Seagulls did not add to their goal tally until the 75th minute when, Jack Robinson put through his own net.
“The game plan at half time was to go deep. I’m not apologising to anyone about our game plan. If we open up, we get murdered, and it looks like we’ve been murdered. We haven’t been murdered today. We’ve stayed in the game. We are talking about periods of the game. Can we get through the first 15 minutes of the second half? We did. Wes made a few saves, which I expected him to do. We talked about the next 15 minutes. We were waiting to bring in the players to open it up higher up the pitch, to go 4-3-2 and see what happens in those 15 minutes. Unfortunately, on that 75-minute mark when we are just about to make that change, there’s an own goal, which is entirely avoidable.
“The game is gone then. We understand that we aren’t going to score three. The fourth goal goes in, poor defending; we have to get tighter off a cross, and the fifth one is a ridiculous deflected shot. I think that’s quite a harsh scoreline against ten men.”
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