Sheffield United

Sheffield United came within minutes of claiming their fourth Premier League win of the season against Bournemouth, but they were forced to settle for a draw after Cherries forward Enes Unal scored in the 91st minute to level things up.

Former Blades striker Carl Asaba says he is "gutted" for Chris Wilder's team, who showed "commendable spirit" but find themselves still sitting bottom of the league.

"After the Arsenal match, you would've taken a point away at Bournemouth," he told BBC Radio Sheffield's Blades Heaven podcast.

"Nobody gave us a chance. Everyone was thinking it was going to be 3-0. I'm just gutted for the players and the manager. I think the spirit we've seen from the majority of the players was just so commendable.

"They give so much. Defensively, Oli McBurnie is our best header of the ball and when he came off, every ball they played into the box, they looked dangerous from.

"It's a good point away from home, but I just feel sorry because it should've been three. I do feel there's a couple of people who can do more to help their team-mates, but the majority on the pitch gave everything they had.

"Outstanding [George] Baldock, outstanding [Jack] Robinson, [Ollie] Arblaster was brilliant, [Ivo] Grbic is a time-wasting extraordinaire.

"All right, we're disappointed we didn't get the three points, but the spirit was there. They worked really hard and they have come away with a point. There's been games this season where they have worked really hard and come away with nothing.

"So that's a big, big point for them. We've got three weeks now, three positive weeks with something to build on and a performance to look back at and try to improve on."

Listen to the full podcast on BBC Sounds

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Former Chelsea midfielder Jody Morris and former Tottenham defender Stephen Kelly both believe Sheffield United boss Chris Wilder should be planning ahead for a Championship promotion push next season.

The Blades missed the chance to move eight points from safety after conceding late to Bournemouth on Saturday and look all but doomed to relegation.

"They'll be really disappointed not to hold on to that," Kelly told BBC Radio 5 Live's Football Daily podcast. "You don't want to relegate teams but realistically you think of the points they have on the board at the moment - are they going to double that within the time they have? It's not going to happen.

"You feel sorry for them but it's about galvanising and building for next season. I'm sure Wilder's thinking 'right, what am I going to do? I'll pick the bones out of this squad, regroup, and see who has the mentality to get this team back up'.

"They'll want to have a better go at it next time."

Morris stated: "Bournemouth were definitely the better team but when you're 2-0 up with 15 minutes to go it's an absolute killer blow to not bring home the three points.

"Chris Wilder, for me, is the the one who needs to be in charge there looking at next season. He needs to be looking at that thinking 'can we bounce back to the Premier League?'

"He's done it before. I think Wilder's the one.

"You have to be dealing with the fact you're losing a lot of games but making sure you're not too down going into next season because he'll be thinking ahead."

• Did you know? Sheffield United had nine shots on target against Bournemouth, their most on record in a single Premier League game (since 2006-07).

Listen to the full episode on BBC Sounds

Gary Lineker introduces highlights and analysis from Saturday's five Premier League fixtures.

If you missed Match of the Day, you can catch up on the action on BBC iPlayer.

Listen back to Saturday's BBC Radio 5 Live and 5 Sports Extra match commentaries in full:

• Crystal Palace v Luton Town

• Arsenal v Brentford

Matthew Howarth
BBC Sport journalist

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Enes Unal's late equaliser was harsh on Sheffield United, who responded to Monday's humiliation at home by Arsenal with a spirited showing on the south coast.

Unsurprisingly perhaps, the visitors looked short of confidence in the early stages as Bournemouth started on the front foot.

But Dominik Solanke's penalty miss appeared to breathe new life into Wilder's men, who were rewarded for their efforts when Gustavo Hamer beat Neto for his third Premier League goal.

Sheffield United had conceded 18 goals in their previous five top-flight matches, but they defended resolutely in the first half and appeared on course for three precious points after Jack Robinson capitalised on Neto's lapse in concentration to double their advantage.

However, it was one-way traffic after Dango Ouattara had halved the deficit with just over a quarter of an hour of normal time remaining, with Unal's last-gasp finish denying the Blades a precious victory.

The late goal was a bitter pill to swallow, but Wilder will be heartened by his team's display as he prepares to meet club owner Prince Abdullah in Riyadh next week.

Enes Unal's stoppage-time equaliser rescued a point for Bournemouth and denied Sheffield United a precious three points in their fight for Premier League survival.

The Turkey international, on loan from Getafe, headed in his first goal for the club in the first minute of added time, moments after having a header from a similar position cleared of the line.

The goal was harsh on Sheffield United, who were much improved from Monday's chastening defeat at home by Arsenal and had led 2-0 until the 74th minute at Vitality Stadium.

Gustavo Hamer opened the scoring in the first half after Bournemouth goalkeeper Neto had parried Jayden Bogle's low shot into his path, his goal coming 13 minutes after Dominik Solanke had skied an early penalty for the Cherries.

Solanke won the spot-kick after being caught late by Tom Davies but slipped in the run-up, the ball sailing high over the crossbar after hitting the striker's standing foot.

The visitors were gifted a second goal midway through the second period when Neto punched a corner into the head of Solanke and it fell into the path of Robinson, whose close-range shot struck the inside of the post on its way over the line.

Solanke had a goal disallowed by the video assistant referee after handling the ball inside the six-yard area, and Dango Ouattara's emphatic header gave the Cherries hope before Unal completed the fightback.

Were you at the match or did you follow it from elsewhere?

Bournemouth fans - let us know your thoughts on the game here

How did you rate the side's performance, Blades fans?

Follow all of the reaction here

There are five games being played in the Premier League on Saturday and we will bring you every moment.

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Chris Sutton is making predictions for all 380 Premier League matches again this season, against a variety of guests.

For this weekend's games, he takes on The Zutons frontman Dave McCabe, who supports Liverpool, and Better Joy's Bria Keely, who is a Manchester City fan.

Sutton's prediction: 3-0

Bournemouth did not have it all their own way when they beat Burnley last week but I am expecting them to find it a lot easier against Sheffield United.

If things don't go well for them, Cherries fans can blame me, because I am triple-captaining their striker Dominic Solanke in my fantasy football team this weekend.

After this game, they play another side from the bottom three, Luton, at home in a rearranged game on Wednesday. So, my thinking is they have a chance of a cricket score in the next few days... but, because I am captaining him, Solanke probably won't score and will get injured too, while Bournemouth will lose.

Something will have to go badly wrong if they are beaten here, though. Blades boss Chris Wilder said his players were 'broken' after their latest heavy defeat, 6-0 at home to Arsenal on Monday. Being kind, this has been a season to forget for them.

Like Burnley, the Blades have often been outclassed to the point where it has become embarrassing for their fans.

I know what that feels like because I live near Norwich and my old club's past two top-flight campaigns have been so disappointing - the Canaries finished last in 2019-20 and 2021-22 - that some of their supporters would rather have stayed in the Championship.

Similarly, it has not been a pleasant experience for Sheffield United fans seeing their team humiliated week in, week out, which is what has happened. It's been a desperate campaign so far, and I don't see it improving now.

Dave's prediction: 3-1

Bria's prediction: 2-0

Read the rest of their predictions here

Will Sheffield United's challenging season prompt a hangover next season?

Blades fan Ben Humphries has been speaking to The Football News Show about changes that may be needed to shift the mental blemish relegation could deliver.

Watch a clip above or The Football News Show in full here

Is getting promoted to the Premier League too easy if you've just been relegated?

Daniel Storey from the i Newspaper has been telling The Football News Show about a problem brewing in winning promotion and battling the drop.

Watch The Football News Show on BBC iPlayer here

It's been a testing week for Sheffield United, with manager Chris Wilder telling media on Thursday he is taking on one of his toughest spells in management.

The Blades Heaven team - including former striker Carl Asaba - have been looking at what can be done to improve matters.

Listen to the whole episode on BBC Sounds

Chris Wilder has been speaking to the media before Sheffield United's Premier League game against Bournemouth on Monday.

Here are the key lines from his news conference:

• Wilder said he "can't bury the players" after their hefty defeat to Arsenal on Monday but added "it was a really disappointing performance and result so we have to own that".

• In response to how he's motivating his players off the back of that defeat: "It’s a difficult time for everybody. We all love the football club and everyone connected to it is not enjoying this part of our recent history. We can’t be jumping through hoops. Of course the mood is going to be sombre. Football tests your resolve and psychology and it will test you all the way through your career. We’ll have better days and brighter days but you have to dig in and show you’re up for the fight."

• He said he doesn't "want selfish players or victims" and that apart from defender Jack Robinson, "there’s not many players that can say they’ve played to their maximum level".

• On conceding so many goals: "You need to to give yourself an opportunity in games and it’s quickly gone in some games from one goal, to two, three or four and that’s incredibly disappointing."

• He said this period of time as the hardest of his career "without a shadow of a doubt" and added: "I’ve never asked the supporters for help and I never will because it’s up to us to fire them up. The fans are outstanding and I think they’re making the shirt incredibly light for the players."

• Reflecting on why they have struggled to find consistency: "We have been incredibly harshly impacted in terms of injuries. There’s got to be a touch of sympathy in terms of stability and consistency that we’ve not had. Every team needs it but promoted teams really need it to give them a chance."

• He added that "there’s certainly a lot of work to do in a short period of time," if they are to improve their performances and become defensively stronger.

• On Saturday's opponents Bournemouth: "They’re a good solid club and they’ve got a lot of talent in the team. If they were watching Monday night then they will be expecting a pretty straight forward and comfortable home win. We have to accept that and we have to do our best to make sure that isn’t the way it goes."

Follow Thursday's live Premier League news conferences here

Here are the key facts and figures before Saturday's game between Bournemouth and Sheffield United in the Premier League.

• Bournemouth have won two of their past three league meetings with Sheffield United (D1), more than their first 16 against them before this (W1 D5 L10).

• Sheffield United have lost just one of their nine previous league visits to Bournemouth (W5 D3), although that was the most recent, going down 2-1 in the Championship in October 2021.

• Since their return to the competition last season, Bournemouth are unbeaten in all seven of their Premier League games against promoted sides (W5 D2), winning the past four in a row including all three so far this term.

• Bournemouth's 2-0 win against Burnley last time out ended a seven-game winless run in the Premier League. Their first win of the campaign also came against the Clarets, and also ended a long run without a win (13), kick-starting a run that saw them win seven times in nine games (D1 L1).

• Away from home in the Premier League this season, Sheffield United have won the fewest games (1), earned the fewest points (5), suffered the most defeats (10), scored the fewest goals (10) and conceded the most goals (30) of any side.

• Sheffield United have conceded 72 goals in their 27 Premier League matches this season, the most by any side in any of England’s top four divisions at this stage of a season since Doncaster Rovers in 1997-98 in the fourth tier (73).

Ben Meakin
Fan writer

Chris Wilder assumed a near-impossible task when he was reappointed as boss last year, with the club lurching towards inevitable relegation.

However, after a fourth straight home game where Sheffield United have conceded five or more goals, it's fair to ask a few questions of the manager.

Neither Wilder nor Paul Heckingbottom are wholly responsible for the mess of this season - that falls squarely on our woeful summer business - but at the same time, fans deserve better than what we’re paying to witness.

As with the end of Heckingbottom's tenure, early sparks of organisation and competitiveness have evaporated into a series of mismatches rarely - if ever - witnessed in the history of English league football.

Like Heckingbottom, Wilder may not have a strong hand of cards to play - but he's still playing them badly.

We saw Luton Town's Alfie Doughty obliterate an out-of-position Auston Trusty down our left on Boxing Day - yet Wilder thought that repeating the tactic against Bukayo Saka would yield positive results. It did not.

We've also gone back to the dog days of Heckingbottom where the team would be set up ultra-defensively - and sit ultra-deep - yet still allow chance after chance and unfathomable amounts of space to the opposition.

Yes, Arsenal are an elite side – but they’re also the fourth team in a row to absolutely dismantle us on our home patch.

There doesn’t seem to be any plan for how we intend to play, with or without the ball. The players are unquestionably not cut out for this league – but a manager's job is to mould a team into more than the sum of its parts.

Wilder's United - like Heckingbottom's before him - look like a rabble and reflect the stagnant malaise that is our ownership situation.

The end of the season can’t come soon enough.

Ben Meakin can be found on BladesPod, external

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Sheffield United fan Ben Humphries from the TravellingBlade YouTube channel, external has been speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live about the club's struggles this season.

Speaking about Monday's 6-0 loss to Arsenal he said: "The defence may as well have not been on the pitch, I think in the case of Arsenal's second goal it would have been better if the defence weren't on the pitch because we put it in our own net.

"The players this season are absolutely shot to bits, both mentally and physically, and they simply aren't good enough for this level.

"It's reached a point where I'm no longer even particularly angry at them, my anger's more at the board in the way that they set us up to fail this season. We were so ill-prepared coming into this season, the players have probably done as well as they could do. It's just they're this short of the quality required to put in a decent performance at this level."

The Blades have lost 20 of their 27 Premier League games this season, conceding a total of 72 goals.

Humphries added: "This season has been absolutely pathetic, the way we've been set up, selling our best players about a week before the start of the season and scrambling around for inferior replacements while the season is still happening.

"Trying to change manager hasn't worked, we thought we were going to get better, we did for a little bit, but now we're back to getting hammered every week.

"You see the players just trudging back to the halfway line looking almost a bit disinterested at times, that is why everyone is really cheesed off to put it very politely."

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Sheffield United "don't need to come straight back up" to the Premier League and should take time to find their "identity" instead.

The Blades' season went from bad to worse on Monday when they were humiliated 6-0 by Arsenal at Bramall Lane.

Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live Breakfast, Blades fan Harvey Hinkler said: "We came into the season woefully underprepared.

"I know Burnley aren't having a great season. but they spent about £100m and backed their manager. Luton had a clear progression plan in place, a brilliant coach and a really well put together structure. We sold our two best players a few days before the season.

"With that kind of preparation it was only a matter of time before these kind of results happened.

"Since Chris Wilder has come back, I think one of the biggest positives is the young players who have come in. Andre Brooks has been a real spark and had some really good performances against good sides. He has just signed a new long-term contract - as has Ollie Arblaster.

"You hope, going forwards, those two are what we look to to build our identity around.

"We should stop this mad spending thing everyone does when they come down to the Championship - this: 'We need to spend £50m to get back up.' We don't need to come straight back up. We can take a few years and find our identity, find a structure. Those two players are perfect to build around."

The result against the Gunners left Chris Wilder's side rooted to the bottom of the table on 13 points, with their -50 goal difference 15 worse than Burnley in 19th.

"You would think you would want an immediate response after such a poor season. You'd want a much, much better one," Hinkler added.

"We will win games next season and I think that will be enough for a lot of fans - because I think a lot will be happy to wave goodbye to the Premier League for a bit.

"Our past two seasons [in the Premier League] we've accumulated 36 points as it stands, which probably wouldn't be enough to keep you up in a single season never mind across the two."

We asked for your thoughts after Sheffield United were hammered 6-0 at home by Arsenal - their 20th Premier League defeat of the season.

Here are some of your comments:

John: What is Chris Wilder thinking? 10 retreating men at the back, AT HOME. Arsenal had a row of unchallenged players across the back with the freedom to make passes at their own will to their runners through United's static back-pedalling defence. Please, Chris, give the guys a chance and rethink the strategy.

Eric: What a shambles, total embarrassment. I cannot see what Wilder sees in these players? He needs to pick more of the reserves and younger players, they can't do any worse!

Teach: The expected difficult night. It’s hard to see us getting out of this but Wilder has got to raise morale. One thing is for sure, Blades fans, we haven’t broken the rules and we don’t face points deductions, which is a good thing because we haven’t got many!

David: I think the players forgot to get out of bed. A total disgrace. Not one player was fit to wear a Sheffield United shirt. As for Wilder, one word sums it up: GOODBYE.

Neil: Not one of those players deserve to wear the shirt. They are an embarrassment to the fans and the club!

Green: Absolutely abysmal performance. With quality teams like Arsenal, you can’t just sit back and defend, you have to perform against them. Look at how Luton Town played against Aston Villa. It was a stupid decision to sell Berge and Ndiaye at the start of the season.

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Former Sheffield United striker Carl Asaba says he "feels sorry" for the Blades fans who came to watch Monday's 6-0 loss to Arsenal at Bramall Lane.

United were 4-0 down after 25 minutes and became the first side in English league football to concede five or more goals in four successive home games.

"A chastening evening," he told BBC Radio Sheffield's post-match Blades Heaven podcast. "I feel sorry for everyone who came to watch, who has this as the highlight of their week.

"It's just totally depressing. That was dismal.

"We were upbeat after being beaten at Wolves because we had a go, had good chances and could have taken a point.

"This was just a non-event. It wasn't even like a cup tie where you're in it and you're fighting.

"After 12 minutes the game was over. No matter what you do, you weren't going to be able to beat this team or match them. The gulf - this has just been horrible.

"I don't think you can pick on any one player - they're just not good enough. It's not like the tactics were wrong - the players are not anywhere near the level of Arsenal.

"It's a complete mismatch. The gulf between the Premier League and the Championship now - it's really hard to bridge the gap."

Listen to the full episode on BBC Sounds

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Sheffield United boss Chris Wilder, speaking to BBC MOTD after Monday's 6-0 home defeat by Arsenal: "Arsenal were outstanding. We didn't track runners and made it pretty easy for them to open us up.

"They cut us wide open. They are doing that to a lot of teams. I'm not saying that makes us feel better because that is another long night for this club.

"[Bukayo] Saka took us to pieces down that side. You have to try to stem the tide, especially when they are in full flow. When they get five at the top of the pitch, they find that pass and movement - then it is difficult to stop.

"We didn't have an answer to anything they had. The result is what the result is and we have to live with it."

Did you know?

• Sheffield United have become the first side in English league football to concede five or more goals in four successive home games and the first side to lose three consecutive home league games by at least a five-goal margin.

• This was the fourth time this season the Blades have lost a home league game by at least five goals, becoming the first side in a top-flight campaign to do so.

• Jayden Bogle scored Sheffield United's fifth own goal in the Premier League this season, more than any other side in the competition.