Soccer
Chris Wilder proud of ‘gritty’ Sheffield United display during win at Blackburn
Chris Wilder was pleased with Sheffield United’s “gritty” display after coming from behind to defeat Blackburn 2-1.
The Blades were behind to Kristi Montgomery’s spectacular first goal for the club in the 20th minute and offered nothing until the 35th minute, but burst into life through Tom Cannon’s cool finish.
Sydie Peck completed the turnaround nine minutes later with a brilliant left-footed finish from the edge of the area.
Both sides had shots cleared off the line in the second half, but the visitors dug in and Wilder was happy with his side’s attitude.
He said: “We’ve moved into the top 10 tonight. Lost one all season. Yes, we’re not flowing, but we’ve got an attitude about us, got character about us.
“I didn’t enjoy Saturday (the loss against Norwich). I wanted a reaction. I asked for the players to dig in, scramble about, do jobs that some of them are not used to doing, getting players up to speed as well. You could see Hamza (Choudhury) was absolutely shot after the game he’s played, Ben (Brereton Diaz) as well.
“I asked for a gritty performance that represents me, the club, the city, and our team and we got that.
“For me, it’s always the result, and improve on the performance. I’m not one of those to improve on the performance and the results will come.
“I’m not embarrassed about winning games of football because we didn’t win a lot of games of football at the start of last year.”
Defeat means Rovers lose 2-1 for the third successive home game in all competitions. including against the Blades in the Carabao Cup.
Tony Mowbray felt despite his side’s dominance, they gave “very soft” goals away.
He said: “Ultimately, we lost a game and I think the goals we lost were very soft.
“The first one, goalkeeper kicked it out of his six-yard box down the middle of our pitch and within a few seconds, it’s in the back of our net. That’s just soft really, you’ve got to do the basics better.
“I think on the positive side, without seeing any data, it felt like we were pretty dominant in the game. It felt like we were the team that had the most shots, had the most chances, had the most – if we want to talk about data – expected goals.
“I think there’s lots of positives to be looked at. We got into some great areas. Less than a minute before they scored to equalise, we scored a goal that was marginally offside.
“We shot ourselves in the foot really. We weren’t ruthless enough. You can’t give games away like that, that you’re so dominant in.”
