Sheffield United manager Paul Heckingbottom reflected on his side’s “wasteful” performance following their 3-3 draw at home to Blackpool which saw them lose their place at the top of the table.

The hosts had looked comfortable following goals from James McAtee and Iliman Ndiaye, but Jerry Yates struck twice to make it all-square at the break and Kenny Dougall made it 3-2 to Blackpool early in the second half.

Blackpool were reduced to nine men in the closing stages after having Marvin Ekpiteta and Dominic Thompson sent off and Oliver Norwood equalised deep into time added on.

Heckingbottom said: “It’s not a good point, having been two-nil up, but then the situation we put ourselves in, to come back, you’ve got to accept that.

“Should we have won? Yeah. We’ve created enough chances to win the game, but we’ve not done it.

“I’m not going to hide behind the ref. We’ve been two-up without playing brilliant.

“We weren’t in control. Look how many times we gave the ball away cheaply. We had opportunities to take control of the game, but we didn’t. We were wasteful with the ball.”

On the after-match flare-up which saw home goalkeeper Wes Foderingham and Blackpool’s Shayne Lavery shown red cards, Heckingbottom said: “I saw them both on the floor. Lavery has come and grabbed Wes to keep him out of the way and as Wes has spun, they’ve both grappled each other and just fallen over.

“They didn’t seem to think anything had happened but obviously the referee has seen two lads on the floor and he’s thinking that they’re fighting.

“We’ll have to have a look and see what we do about it.”

Blackpool boss Michael Appleton said: “I suppose the over-riding emotion is frustration, but it shouldn’t be because there was a lot of good play from both sides today.

“There were some good goals and some not-so-good goals, but overall it’s very difficult to be too disappointed.

“The fact that we’ve come here and gone toe-to-toe with them. When it goes down to 10 and nine men it becomes a bit of a lottery and you’ve got to defend for your lives and hope your goalkeeper has a good end to the game, which he did do.

“I understand the first one (red card). I thought it was a little bit soft, but I get it. I’m not sure it would have happened if it was down the other end, but I get it.

“The second one was a bit of stupidity from one of our younger players who will learn from it and be a better person and better player from the experience.”