Chris Wilder rated Norwich City’s front three as among the best in the Championship after feeling the sharp end of the Canaries’ attack in a 3-1 Bramall Lane defeat.
Mo Toure and Anthony Musaba were on target while former Blade Andre Brooks had a shot kicked off the line, slotted by Mathias Kvistgaarden, to seal a first away league win of the season for Philippe Clement’s squad.
Wilder pinpointed Toure’s instinctive breakaway finish minutes from half-time as a key turning point.
“They are dangerous on the counter,” he said. “Listen the front three especially, in my opinion, are possibly the best front three or one of the best in the division in in how they play, But I felt in the first half for a spell we never allowed them to get the ball up to them, because we shut that down and we wrestled the initiative back.
“You get to 43 minutes and the game is just turned on its head. We don’t get those opportunities to score those goals. They’ve had the opportunity to score the goals. We’ve not dropped on a second ball, we’ve got three people around it and we don’t deal with the ball up in the air, they’re cute, and then we have to stop the run, and we have to defend better.
“My skipper has to defend better in that situation. The boy goes clean through and scores, and then it is pinning the balloon all the way around the place because it was good atmosphere and it was good environment to play, and we felt we were in the game.”
Wilder was ‘irritated’ by his side’s weak response to Norwich’s match-sealing strike.
“I thought we made it pretty comfortable for Norwich,” he said. “They managed the game well, managed the game better than us, and the goals that we’ve conceded are really poor.
“Even though the third one’s offside, which you’ll see when that gets replayed, but even taking that out, I think Philippe would have been disappointed if he’d have not won the game.
“I don’t think we deserved to, especially the last 20 or 25 minutes, get anything out of it. We never looked like getting back into the game and putting pressure on them and asking them the question. It’s irritated me.
“And I should imagine maybe a stronger word was possibly used in that changing room to what I am saying here, but I didn’t enjoy the last 20, 25 minutes.
“We never looked like getting back into the game and that, for me, is not how I want to see my team play.”