That’s it for tonight. Thanks for reading and for all your emails. See you next time.
“We’ve got to dust ourselves down and go again Saturday,” says the Sheffield United manager, Chris Wilder. “We have an obligation.
“I thought our supporters were amazing … I understand supporters leaving, I get that … but the noise at the end, when the supporters were vocal, I think shows what an amazing club this is.
“It’s a painful season and the boys are a damaged group of players. There’s no doubt about that. It’s been a long season and they’ve had to take some big hits … we have to be responsible, whether pre-me, or now, we all have to take that responsibility … we can’t get away from that.
“It might be a time to take little peek at who takes us forward in these next 10, 11 games … maybe [Oliver] Arblaster, [Andre] Brooks and [William] Osula are the ones to take us forward a little bit now.
“There were some disappointing performances all over the park … when you’re not at a level that gives you half a chance, you’re just going to get punished, and punished really brutally, like we have been today. They were in a different league, a different planet to us, and we couldn’t lay a glove on them … the gulf is huge and it’s definitely shown tonight.
“They shouldn’t need to be motivated. They’re professional footballers, they get paid, we all do, we get paid very, very well … and we’re at a level that we need to produce and motivate ourselves. I’ll do what I need to do.
“The stuff that we’ve gone through in terms of a game plan goes out the window if we make elementary mistakes. I’m not so sure it’s a motivation level. And I do get why people say, well, ‘They’re not up for it’.
“We just weren’t good enough tonight. From a motivational point of view, playing Monday night live on Sky against Arsenal in the Premier League, you know, it shouldn’t need anybody to get geed up. You should be calming people down.
“When you make some defensively really poor decisions, teams are going to punish you. It looks like you’re not trying. The boys are having a go. They’re hurting. We’re all hurting … and we’re hurting on behalf of the football club. Because the results and the performances, especially over the last three or four games, are nowhere near where they need to be.”
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