19 February 2022

Paul Heckingbottom ‘not surprised’ Blades were so dominant against Swansea

19 February 2022

Sheffield United manager Paul Heckingbottom hailed his side’s “one-sided” performance as they strolled to a 4-0 victory over Swansea.

Morgan Gibbs-White scored in both halves, with George Baldock and Billy Sharp also on target before the break to boost the Blades into the Sky Bet Championship play-off places.

Praising his team, who are now unbeaten in their last eight games, Heckingbottom said: “I’m really pleased. We played against a team that can be difficult to play against and we could and should have had more.

“I’m not going to pick any faults – we were really strong.

“It was a really good second goal. The pleasing thing, again, is that the players want to dominate the ball.

“We needed to probe in midweek whereas today we went about it differently.

“We won the ball high up and that’s how we created the majority of our chances.

“The wing-backs were involved on both sides.

“I’m not being disrespectful when I say that I’m not surprised how one-sided the game was.

“George Baldock will have a scan in the next couple of days on his leg injury.

“I’m hoping that Baldock and Chris Basham will be OK after picking up knocks in the second half. Both of them will be assessed.

“I was impressed with Charlie Goode on his debut.”

Gibbs-White opened the scoring in the 14th minute with a fine finish after getting on the end of a superb ball from Oliver Norwood and Baldock made it 2-0 three minutes later, applying an impressive finish following some good build-up.

Sharp made it 3-0 in the 38th minute, receiving the ball from Gibbs-White following a defensive slip before beating the advancing Andy Fisher.

Gibbs-White scored his second of the match after good hold-up play from Sharp in the 78th minute.

Swansea head coach Russell Martin said: “I feel sorry for the fans that have travelled up in difficult circumstances.

“They deserve better than what we’re giving them away from home at the moment.

“We have a lot of young men who are in the process of growing and learning but we aren’t learning quickly enough, away from home especially.

“We made the same mistakes again. We started so poorly and the game was over after 20 minutes.

“We played against men with a lot of Premier League experience and physical presence.

“The gap between us at our best and our worst is far too big. The gap between us at home and away is far too big, and that’s my fault, so we need to have a look at that.

“A few details in the first 20 minutes in particular have totally cost us. The last 15 minutes of the first-half, the mentality was wrong, the body language, looking around at each other.

“We have to stick together much better than that.”

The best videos delivered daily

Watch the stories that matter, right from your inbox