Sheffield United boss says it was ‘unacceptable’ what Newcastle United did in 8-0 win

Sheffield United manager Paul Heckingbottom says it was “unacceptable” that Newcastle United “outfought and outran” his side during their 8-0 defeat on Sunday evening.

The Blades suffered their largest-ever defeat in their league history. By the same token, the Magpies equalled their biggest Premier League victory having beaten Sheffield Wednesday at St James’ Park in September 1999.

Heckingbottom’s men fell behind in the 21st minute when Sean Longstaff opened the scoring before Kieran Trippier claimed three assists with Dan Burn, Sven Botman and Callum Wilson heading home.

Further goals came courtesy of Anthony Gordon, Miguel Almiron, Bruno Guimaraes and Alexander Isak. Newcastle became the first Premier League club to have eight different scorers in a game.

But it wasn’t just the result that disappointed Heckingbottom.

“The first half we had to change the way we wanted to play, set up a bit differently,” said the 46-year-old. “We went in 3-0 down and that was purely down to our organisation.

“We made changes at half time to chase the game and regardless of mistakes, mistakes lead to goals. The things we have to put right are the bits off the ball.

“We understand the league we are in, we’ve lost three points regardless but as long as learn from the nature of the defeat and what went wrong then all we have lost is three points.

“You could see moments where Newcastle out-fought us and out-ran us. That is not acceptable. We want to compete. There is still a level of competition we expect. We know they have top class players but there is an expectation from us that we are here to compete.

“The organisation is on me but it is not like we don’t work on it.

“We prepare for moments like this, we prepare for coming up against top teams and we prepare for our performances not being good enough. Our season won’t be defined by this game so long as we take the things from it we need to and address things.”

Sheffield United aren’t back in action until next Saturday when they face West Ham United away from home. Newcastle, meanwhile, host Manchester City in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday.