Sheffield United gave a good account of themselves on the south coast on Saturday afternoon, but unfortunately they were only able to share the spoils with Bournemouth in a 2-2 draw.
The Blades took the lead in the 27th minute through Gustavo Hamer after Cherries striker Dominic Solanke skied his earlier penalty. Although the home side had the majority of possession, United weathered the storm and posed a big threat on the counter registering seven shots on target in the first half – that’s more than the Blades conjured up in the previous three games in total (five).
Sheffield United’s front two of Oli McBurnie and Ben Brereton-Diaz complimented each other in the first half; McBurnie’s ability to hold up the ball and link play, while the Chilean threatened to run at and go in behind the Bournemouth defence. It was a duo that the Blades have considerably lacked this season.
Coming out of the halftime interval it was Bournemouth who once again dominated the ball. However, the visitors increased their lead by two when Jack Robinson steered home a close-range volley in the 64th minute.
Shortly after, Chris Wilder made a change which impacted the game negatively; bringing off Oli McBurnie. From that point on the Blades had no target to hit up front – Brereton-Diaz remained but he was essentially running on empty chasing lost causes.
Bournemouth’s pressure paid off when Dango Outtara pulled a goal back in the 74th minute from a corner. On replay it was a terrible looking goal from a Sheffield United perspective. The Cherries scorer had a free run at the ball and Brereton-Diaz, who was zonally marking the near post, failed to even jump to head the ball clear.
From that point on everyone watching the game knew what was about to happen. Enes Unal, another Bournemouth substitute, equalised for the home side in the 91st minute, undoing all of the away team’s hard work.
That point momentarily lifted the Blades off the bottom until Burnley would earn a point on the travels themselves against West Ham.
Sheffield United shoot themselves in the foot far too often
A few things have become quite the theme this season, and which none of them are positive. Sheffield United have had to deal with a ridiculous amount of soft tissue injuries throughout the campaign. Another regular occurrence is that the Blades are on the receiving end of an embarrassing score line, seemingly every other week. The other theme, letting leads slip, especially in the dying stages of a game.
Amongst all the doom and gloom on the pitch, supporters have quite rightly pointed fingers at the board because of what transpired in last summer’s transfer window. It took an age to bring in players to the point where United had a makeshift eleven for the first few games of the season.
Additionally, fans are still not happy the club sold Iliman Ndiaye and Sander Berge in the way they did – parting ways with them days before the Premier League campaign commenced.
That being said, for all of the “poor” transfer business Sheffield United have done, they have still found themselves in winning positions in games.
By my calculations the Blades have dropped a staggering 15 points from winning positions this season. If you add that to their current total they’d be comfortably outside the relegation zone and actually closer to mid-table than the bottom three.
Obviously having better quality subs would help but how much of this is purely down to the players’ fragile mentality? We invite teams on constantly, and it comes to no surprise when we eventually concede a lead.
I am afraid it is down to recruitment and not just this season . Larouci ,Slimane , Souza , Traore have all been a disaster . Add to that Norwood and Osborn not being good enough and you are in trouble . Bogle and Lowe when he’s played are half hearted in stopping crosses , nobody closes players down , you have to wonder what they do on training ground , not a lot looking at most games , they are so unfit , a lot of them can’t manage 90 mins ,mass clear out required .