Sheffield United manager Chris Wilder on his side's summer hopes: "There's a couple that need to go at the end of the season, I'd like to shake it up quicker but the rules and regulations for that now don't allow me to"
Saturday 6 March 2021 22:40, UK
Sheffield United boss Chris Wilder said he would like to "shake up" his squad before the end of the season following a 22nd league defeat of the campaign.
The Blades were beaten 2-0 by Southampton on an afternoon where they mustered only two shots on target, and failed to build on any of the momentum gained by a backs-to-the-wall 1-0 win, with 10 men, against Aston Villa in midweek.
United had to shuffle their already thinning pack yet further thanks to Phil Jagielka's suspension, and even before that had already been without all of their first-choice back-line, something that Wilder felt left it near impossible to pick up results.
"We've got to do so much better, there's so many things we need to address," Wilder told Sky Sports.
"It needs a bit of a shake-up in terms of a few bodies going out, a few bodies coming in, we need to keep our best players because I do believe when I've got Berge back, Basham back, Egan back and O'Connell back, that plays a huge part.
"There's a couple that need to go at the end of the season, I'd like to shake it up quicker but the rules and regulations for that now don't allow me to. The hand I'm given at the moment is a pretty tough one with some of the players we have to go with.
"We have to, as I've talked about, regroup and go again, but it's a tough gig and it's a tough gig this afternoon."
That desire for change was only added to by the Blades' individual errors leading to both goals in their limp defeat, which could have been worse had Aaron Ramsdale not made a number of good saves after Che Adams scored the Saints' second goal.
"We didn't deserve anything from the game," Wilder admitted. "We had more of the ball than we've had for quite a while, but second half the second goal killed us.
"We had possession at the top of the pitch, it comes back, and a lack of quality, a mis-timed tackle, we give it away again - it's another one of three, four and five mistakes. You can't let one mistake go to another, and we've done that too many times. I don't really have an answer for anybody, any of the players.
"Yep, we've opened up, they could've taken us from two to three to four, Aaron's made sure it hasn't happened, but we have to be at our best, full-tilt, the best players have got to be playing to the best of our abilities."
Southampton's victory was their first since beating Liverpool on January 4, and has followed a run of bad luck on the injury front themselves.
Even with Kyle Walker-Peters and Takumi Minamino recovering to start at Bramall Lane, manager Ralph Hasenhuttl lost talisman Danny Ings after 13 minutes in yet another blow, but was relieved to see his side finally end their nine-match winless streak.
He told Sky Sports: "The first win after a long time is always an important one, and I think it was a deserved one today. We had a good performance, deserved to win and it feels good.
"The team did what we had to do against a team that is fighting for everything. The only thing I can criticise is that we could have scored more, but it was important for Che to score, Nathan Tella played well, and it was a good performance."
