Sheffield United boss Chris Wilder couldn’t fault his players after their FA Cup thrashing by Brighton.
The Blades were hammered 5-2 at home in the Fourth Round.
Wilder said: “It is what it is, they’re through to the next round and we’re not. We understand the qualities that the manager and the players bring to Brighton. They’re a real good footballing side and the way they play, better teams than us have struggled with the way they play but for me, looking inwards at our game, some poor goals.
“I know the boy [Facundo Buonanotte] scored a goal with his left peg and it’s gone in the top corner but some real poor goals from our point of view. Two penalties, a couple of opportunities to deal with certain situations that have led to the goals. Delighted that we gave everything as we always do, delighted that we got ourselves back into the game just before half-time then looking forward to a really positive second half but then the goal has obviously really knocked us back again.”
On the two penalties, he added: “No issues, I’ve got an issue with the referee’s performance so I thought he was really poor but put him out to referee our game again, to try and see if he’s alright for the Premier League.
“Brighton are going to dominate passes and possession, we all know that. They do that to better teams, more established teams, bigger quality teams than us week in week out, that’s the reason they have got themselves into Europe this season. They’re a successful side but if we showed a bit more quality in the box and didn’t give them a helping hand it might have been a little bit tighter. It was always going to be a difficult afternoon for us.
“We did our homework and analysis on them, it’s incredible how they play, they open it up to allow you to score as well, we didn’t take those opportunities and the expansive way they play creates chances but really disappointed with the goals that we’ve conceded today because there was some elementary stuff that we could have dealt with.”
On William Osula, he also said: “He won’t be getting another one [goal in the FA Cup] this season, will he? “We’re competitors, we want to win a game of football. We have to park this quickly, we understand that. Some good young players here, they’re learning at the highest level, Will is learning against the likes of them so great experience for him.
“We always had that issue as well, we’ve got a huge game on Tuesday so the balance of picking that side but we have to quickly park it, the young boys will learn from this experience as well so we need to be better and we’ve got them in a few weeks so we’ll need to be better then on certain occasions but we have to quickly move on to Tuesday night.”
