'One bad week' - Sheffield United boss Chris Wilder on Leeds United promotion and Blades' suffering
Chris Wilder congratulated both Daniel Farke and Scott Parker as Leeds United and Burnley pipped Sheffield United to promotion
Sheffield United boss Chris Wilder says one 'bad week' cost his club and allowed Leeds United and Burnley to take automatic promotion away from the Blades.
Leeds' 6-0 win at home to Stoke City created an eight-point gap between themselves and third-placed Sheffield United, who subsequently lost 2-1 at Turf Moor to mathematically confirm their participation in this season's play-offs. Both Leeds and Burnley boast 94 points and will battle it out for the title over the next two games, once promotion celebrations have died down.
For Wilder, Leeds have been an 'outstanding' rival this season and Burnley's unbeaten streak and defensive achievements have been 'insane' but he insists the Blades' season is worth praise too.
"We've been in and around the top three, the three best sides in the division," he said. "Just first and foremost congratulations to Daniel [Farke] and his team, Leeds United have been incredibly outstanding all season. I've just said to Scott [Parker] there congratulations to him and his players, to go 31 games unbeaten and concede, what 13 or 14 goals is insane. For us to have the ability in the next two games to get into the 90s is testament to what we've achieved so far. We'll suffer today and tonight."
Where it all went wrong for Sheffield United
Wilder says his side's run of three defeats on the trot against Oxford United, Millwall and Plymouth Argyle proved decisive.
"The season got away from us in that bad week we had," he said. "The three best teams in the division have been in and around it until 10 days or two weeks ago, when we had a bad week in terms of results and handed the initiative over to Leeds and Burnley. Fair play, they stepped on the gas and took it away from us.
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"Our season is still alive, we're gonna be 18, 20 points clear of the teams in and around the play-offs. I want us to finish on above 90 points. We'll go to Stoke and home to Blackburn and hopefully pick up more points and then focus on what we need to focus on, the play-offs. There's no reason we can't be successful in them."
The Blades boss is adamant that missing out on automatic promotion should not be regarded as failure for Sheffield United this season due to the timing of their recruitment work to finalise his squad in the summer.
"It was one week of football," he said. "Can't really put my finger on it. These weird results happen at the end of the season. This isn't a failure. The team got put together at the start of the season."
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