Chris Wilder fires Leeds United shot as Sheffield United exit FA Cup with low attendance and injury blow

Leeds United’s key promotion rivals Sheffield United have exited the FA Cup with a new injury blow, low attendance and boss admission.

Chris Wilder’s Blades sit just one point behind frontrunners Leeds in the Championship table but attention turned to the FA Cup with Thursday night’s third round hosting of Cardiff City.

The game was one of three FA Cup contests moved to be played on Thursday evening, in Sheffield United’s case for live coverage on BBC Wales.

Wilder made eight changes for the contest and made no apology post match in admitting that the Championship had to be seen as the priority.

That was reflected in the game’s attendance of just 6,126 in freezing conditions at Bramall Lane.

The night proved one to forget for Wilder’s side who fell to a 1-0 defeat and also lost captain Rhys Norrington-Davies to injury.

Wilder admitted post-match that the majority of the players brought in had failed to impress but signalled his side’s clear league intent in the final 20 games of the Championship season.

The Blades boss also served a reminder that his third-placed side had picked up more points than anyone else this season - even Leeds - by virtue of starting the season with a two-point deduction for defaulted transfer payments.

“I had to [make changes],” said Wilder, as quoted by The Star.

“I'm not trying to deflect anything. I'm a bit disappointed that some of the younger players didn't take the opportunity, a couple did. I thought Baptiste and [Billy] Blacker were good.

“I'd sum it up by saying their fringe players were better than our fringe players and their youngsters were better than ours on the whole. And that was the game.

“You saw from the team sheet and it's not an apology from me, I told everyone and we wanted to go through, but I could quite easily have gone Hamer and O'Hare and Anel on.

“In the back of my head, that risk is not one worth taking. Nine out injured and if I don't get the players back we're expecting back, and the players we're trying to get in for Norwich, where does that leave me?

“It potentially leaves me in a worse position than we were in at Watford, and we know how hard that was. Our priority, unfortunately, is the Championship. It's a bit sad, in a way, the way it's going. But with nine out and risks to certain players it was needs must.”

Wilder added: “Playing on a Thursday was sad, too. It didn't feel like an FA Cup third-round game that we've all been involved in. But I'd like to think people will cut us a little bit of slack from a selection point of view in terms of the decisions we made.

“I could have gambled but the gamble doesn't come off and we lose those players, then we're possibly in a worse situation. If people want to chuck stones at me for that, then I get it. But the last 20 games are all that matter now.

“We've put ourselves in a fabulous position, we've won more points than anyone else and we're getting players back. Not to play 95 minutes, so we're going to have to integrate them and monitor them. But hopefully the feeling we have going into the next game will be absolutely completely differently to the feeling tonight.”