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It is almost thirty years since we won there and that record never looked as though it would end tonight as we turned in a dire performance although Adrian Heath has now lost the record of being the last Claret to score there.
Stan promised changes and we got them with three of Sunday’s midfielders, Paul Cook, Tony Grant and Alan Moore out and replaced by Steve Davis, Paul Weller and Glen Little. The midfield has been a problem all season and tonight’s formation looked anything but the answer.
Skipper Steve Davis is obviously not match fit and nothing I have seen at any time has convinced me that he can play in midfield. With Glen having another dreadful game too there was not likely to be much improvement in that department.
The first half of the game was awful and it has to be said that Sheffield United, although far better than us, were not playing well. But even so they scored two and could have had more although it was us that missed the first chance when Briscoe was put clear only to see Paddy Kenny save his poor effort.
The first goal was a curler from outside the box from Michael Brown who was given far too much time and space to get a shot in and didn’t disappoint the home fans. As sick as I was at going behind I did have to smile when I saw three sides of the ground making complete fools of themselves prancing around to a new mix of Tom Hark. I’m sure I’ve seen those embarrassing scenes before.
And they really blast it out just as they do the entrance music which I have to say was the very impressive and suitable Star Wars Theme. I’m certain it was Sheffield United that we first got Tom Hark from and hopefully it is now time to completely hand it back. I hope our PR team were watching that.
By half time Brown had done it again, this time with a free kick, but this was down to poor goalkeeping from Marlon who let it go in on his near post.
Apart from the missed chance from Briscoe our only other contribution during that first bleak 45 minutes was to have two players booked by referee Alan Butler. He was to book a total of six players altogether (five from Burnley) in a game where there was not a single bad foul.
The second half was following the same pattern and so Stan changed things and went with three at the back (Davis though still in midfield). When we do that it can often result in us throwing one in but shortly afterwards we fought our way back into the game with a headed goal by Gareth Taylor from a Lee Briscoe goal.
Back in the game did I say? Not for long and two minutes later we were 3-1 down although there did appear to be a foul on Ian Cox before Ndlovu was able to hit the ball home.
From then on it was nothing short of embarrassing as heads went down. The fourth duly came but had Sheffield United been able to convert some other reasonably easy chances we could have been looking at many more than that.
It was difficult to believe just how easy it was to get through our defence but really we shouldn’t have been surprised. This is the fifth time we have conceded four or more this season.
We did score the last goal thought as Robbie Blake hit home off the post in the last minute of normal time but it was hardly a consolation.
Everyone was gutted on Sunday and this was the chance to get it out of the system but instead we have turned in a performance that is totally unacceptable. Stan has been talking about the play offs but much more of this and we won’t have a chance of being anywhere near close.
Sheffield United got stronger as the game went on and looked a much more impressive outfit than the one that won at Burnley. But some of their play is distasteful and they are certainly good at going down. Some would be polite and call it all gamesmanship.
But we are more concerned with Burnley and there were some very poor individual performances out there tonight. It is difficult to see how any of them could have come out of the game with any credit whatsoever although Paul Weller, probably our best player, worked hard in the midfield.
We need a better performance on Saturday at Walsall and the travelling fans, having been badly let down now twice in four days, deserve a hell of a lot better than what was served up tonight.
The teams were,
Sheffield United: Paddy Kenny, Phil Jagielka, Shaun Murphy, Robert Page, Rob Kozluk, Nick Montgomery (John Curtis 80), Stuart McCall (Peter Ndlovu 44), Michael Brown, Michael Tonge, Dean Windass (Wayne Allison 77), Steve Kabba. Subs not used: Paul Peschisolido, Jean-Phillipe Javary.
Burnley: Marlon Beresford, Dean West (Robbie Blake 59), Ian Cox, Driss Diallo, Graham Branch, Glen Little (Paul Cook 90), Paul Weller, Steve Davis, Lee Briscoe (Tony Grant 65), Ian Moore, Gareth Taylor. Subs not used: Nik Michopoulos, Dimitri Papadopoulos.
Referee: Alan Butler (Sutton-in-Ashfield).