Blues boss Kieran McKenna says his side needs to be stronger in situations like the one which led to Sheffield United’s second goal during the 3-1 defeat at Bramall Lane.

Having failed to take earlier chances, Town went behind to Callum O’Hare’s opener on 38, then conceded Andre Brook’s second in first-half injury time.

After the break, Jack Clarke netted his 11th goal of the season from the penalty spot, but Patrick Bamford, who was later sent off for a dive, the one-time England man’s second bookable offence, sealed the three points for the Blades.

“We’re really frustrated with how the game panned out,” McKenna said. “I think up until the first goal, it wasn’t a great game by any means but there were big chances at both ends.

“We had the better chances, probably three big, big moments to go 1-0 up, which would have changed the complexion of the game.

“The third of those chances [led to] the corner that then they score from, but we have to own the next bit because the first goal is really, really poor from us. We can’t concede that goal from our corner, we didn’t deal with the ball that got cleared well enough.

“And then we didn’t find enough to get through to half-time. You know when they get the first goal in a situation like that that the stadium’s going to be up and you have to stay strong until half-time.

“The second goal, disappointing from us again, we didn’t sprint back in quick enough, which is not like us and they shouldn’t get two or three bites at it to score because that’s a big thing for us - sprinting back in as a collective so that if we make a mistake and they get one chance, they don’t get the second and third phase of it. We didn’t do that well enough, so we gave ourselves a mountain to climb.

“We had a go in the second half, got the goal back, had a really good situation with Leif [Davis] on the left to do to 2-2 but then a long ball from that that we don’t deal with well enough and it’s 3-1 and that was then too much to come back from.

“A frustrating game, one that could have panned out differently had we been more clinical with our early chances, but we’ll own the bit that we can control and mostly that was the first goal and the period up until the second goal, and the second goal in particular that we didn’t deal with well enough and we need to be stronger in those situations.”

There were flashpoints between players of both teams following the first Sheffield United goal, with Blades players unhappy that keeper Christian Walton had caught O’Hare on the head with his boot as the two collided, and then again at the end of the half with the Blues players incensed by Sydie Peck ruffling the grounded George Hirst’s hair.

Asked about those incidents, McKenna played them down: “I don’t know, to be honest. It’s a competitive game, an emotional game. I don’t think there was much to either of them. Of the issues today, that wasn’t the issue.

“If you come here, it’s always going to be a feisty game and you have to stand up to that in certain situations and make sure you stay together as a team. I didn’t see anything in particular that was a problem in those moments.”

While Town are second in a table based on home form, on away results they are 13th.

Quizzed on that disparity, McKenna said: “We love playing at home, we’ve a great home stadium, a great home crowd and going away from home is going to be tougher.

“It’s a pretty new group this year, so we’re still developing and finding and there was a time in the season where we were having good away form and not so good home form. Now it’s flipped.

“Our last away game was Coventry away and that was maybe our best performance of the season away from home, we played really well. Today, we didn’t find that. It’s still something for us to work on, that’s true.

“To do well away from home in the Championship, you do need to be really good in adversity, you need to be really good at standing up in difficult situations and the group has shown that at times this year. But we still need to find consistency in how we are in those moments.

“We’re certainly going to get plenty of practise, we’ve got lots of away games coming up. Coming to Bramall Lane is always tough, doesn’t matter which team you are. We didn’t take our moments today and we didn’t do well enough in a few moments and the game’s gone against us, but in general we just need to keep improving as a group on every aspect.

“Part of that is how we deal with some situations away from home and we’ll continue to try and do so.”

Photo: TWTD