Heckingbottom on responding to 8-0 loss, support from owners and West Ham
- Published
Craig Nelson, BBC Sport
Sheffield United manager Paul Heckingbottom has been speaking with the media before Saturday's Premier League game at West Ham.
Here are a few key lines from his news conference:
He said he spoke with Blades owner Prince Abdullah and chief executive Stephen Bettis after Sunday's 8-0 defeat to Newcastle: "Yes, Prince Abdullah was on the phone to me straight after the game. We speak regular, that is not an issue. So yes, the support is there."
He added: "My job is this building and the unity within this building. We need to understand that we need to be better, I think we are all in agreement on that."
On how he wants his players to respond: "We need to be one of these teams that have suffered these defeats before and used it to achieve our goal, which is to stay in this league."
On whether he has seen a response in training: "Training last week was good. It’s a realisation that games are not won on the training pitch. We do all our preparation to try to prepare the players as best as we possibly can but there has got to be a mentality to carry that out on the pitch. I will be more intrigued to see the performance on Saturday rather than how we have been performing in training."
On where his side go from here: "As much as we want it to be a one off we can’t just ignore the performance. We have got to look at it and make sure people understand what they need to do to improve and what they need to do to get into this team."
Oli McBurnie is back from suspension and Heckingbottom confirmed Gus Hamer was "ok" after his thigh injury. He also said John Fleck trained after his broken leg in pre-season: "So that’s another one back. No-one else to add to the injury list."
On the importance of the West Ham game: "How critical is the game? None more so than the others in terms of the points we can get. We want to make sure we respond from that performance that we weren’t happy with. That’s the importance of this. We can’t feel sorry for ourselves, because no-one else is going to feel sorry for us."
On West Ham: "We know we are playing against a team that – no matter who they play against – pose threats. We have to make sure we are just as good without the ball and make it difficult for them. We know we are in for a tough game."
Hear more from Heckingbottom's news conference on BBC Sounds