View from Sheffield

Sheffield United were beaten 2-0 at Leicester City midweek, and they will be looking to bounce back.

Defender Jack O’Connell has been speaking to the media ahead of their game with Everton, and he says the squad need to improve quickly.

On the loss to Leicester:

“Thursday was tough to take, we didn’t really lay a glove on them but now got to move on to a big game on Monday.

“It’s harder to take because we don’t know why it happened, we were in good shape before it but we didn’t turn up.

“The gaffer had a word with us and made it sink in, we had to rest because it’s a short space of time between games but we’ll be back at it tomorrow.”

On criticism from his manager after the defeat:

“I think he’s right, it’s not acceptable to perform like that especially with the standards we have set. All we can do is try to put it right.

“We’ll be motivated to do so, we’ve shown in the past that we react when we’ve had a disappointing result and can’t see why we won’t do that on Monday as well.

“It was a wake-up call, a massive one. It’s a tough, ruthless division and if we’re not at our max, we’ll get punished. And we did.”

On ‘big club’ Everton:

“They’re a top team and a massive football club, the manager speaks for himself and it’ll be a tough game. Hopefully we can go out there and get a reaction.

“I’m from the city and got a lot of fans who are Everton fans, the expectations are massive. They’re trying to build a new stadium and have Ancelotti so, in my opinion, they should be challenging for Europe.

“They’ve been saying it for a long time but with the stadium and investment and manager they’ve got, don’t see why they won’t [take off]

“We weren’t great at Goodison on the ball, we did a defensive job on them and hopefully we can be better on the ball on Monday night.”

Stay tuned and Chris Wilder’s press conference is coming soon too. We’ll have the updates right here.