Sheffield United and Wrexham players traded insults in the media after the Blades’ FA Cup win last night.
National League Wrexham were level heading into stoppage time when Billy Sharp, and then Sander Berge, sealed progress for the Championship high-flyers, setting up a fifth round match against Tottenham.
But Sharp was furious with the “lack of respect” from Wrexham and he made sure their Disney+ cameras, filming for the second season of “Welcome to Wrexham”, heard exactly what he thought in the tunnel afterwards as both sets of players clashed.
“I feel like a bit of a dampener has been put on the game with the way they’ve acted in the tunnel. They showed a real lack of humility,” Wrexham captain Ben Tozer said.
“But that’s the way they want to be and I feel like if we won that game we would’ve shown a lot more humility and respect.”
Sharp accused some of Wrexham’s players of taunting in the lead-up to the game and that made victory even sweeter for him.
He also took issue with a tweet posted by Wrexham’s official Twitter account after the fifth-round draw was made which tagged Tottenham and used the two eyes emoji.
“I thought there was a lack of respect towards us,” Sharp fumed to Sheffield United TV.
“Whoever runs their Twitter account wants to be careful because they thought they were playing Spurs before they beat us.
“There were a few comments from their players which I won’t say, they know who they are. I’m glad we’ve beaten them tonight.”
Tozer has since fired back at Sharp’s claims and confronted him ‘face to face’ to tell him he was in the wrong in the tunnel
“They should show more respect to us. They were telling us to ‘shove it on the documentary’,” Tozer added.
“I feel like he’s [Sharp] fabricated stuff in his head to make that acceptable for himself if I’m honest.
“I said to him face-to-face, “show a bit more humility”. We’ve congratulated them on the win, we haven’t sulked, we’ve walked down the tunnel as normal and it’s just a shame that that’s the way it’s ended.”
He added: “You had people like Oli McBurnie saying stuff in the press; I don’t think any of our lads said anything disrespectful. We certainly approached the game properly.
“If that’s the way they want to be that’s the way they want to be.”
Wrexham manager Phil Parkinson also confronted Sharp as he headed towards the 4,700 away fans to goad them with a gesture of tears.
“I am a bit disappointed with Billy to be honest with you, some of the things he was shouting down the tunnel at the end,” the Wrexham manager said.
“Well done Bill, you’re a fantastic player but I thought he was disrespectful after the game. I think the way the players celebrated and the crowd and staff was just a mark of how tough we made for them and they were relieved to get through.
“The message to Billy is: You’re better than that, you really are. My players are humble people and a great credit to the football club.”
