Sheffield United manager, Paul Heckingbottom, has been speaking about the current training programme and admitted his frustration at the situation.
Heckingbottom has seen his side decimated by injuries and that came to a head over the weekend as Stoke had too much for United’s patched up side. The Potters ran out 3-1 winners in the end, albeit United did have some good moments that didn’t quite go their way.
The Blades boss is hoping that a number of players could return this weekend against Blackpool though.
However, despite the good news of a few coming back into the fold, Heckingbottom has told Yorkshire Live that he’s seriously frustrated with how those injuries have been disrupting training recently.
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“We can’t train. What’s winding me up is I haven’t done a training session for seven weeks, we are wrapping them in cotton wool. The boys that are training are individual sessions, most of my tactical stuff is on video and that’s how it has been,” Heckingbottom said.
“We have weeks with games Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday and then an international break where most of our boys were away, we only had four players remain. It’s totally changed how we have worked. I can’t wait for when we have the players flying about in training again, really competing and pushing but that might be a couple of weeks off yet.”
Sheff U News View: Heckingbottom Insight Explains A Lot
There has been a bit of a dip in terms of performance levels in the last month or so and Heckingbottom’s comments here seem to explain a lot of that.
If United are unable to train as they want and Heckingbottom cannot get his messages across properly, then that is going to show in the games.
Billy Sharp once spoke of how a drop in training standards under Slavisa Jokanovic had hindered United’s on-pitch performances. And while the circumstances right now can’t be compared, it does feel as though this Blades side need to be at it 100% of the time in training and on matchdays.
Hopefully, the coming weeks will see a return to normal for United and Heckingbottom can get back to working how he wants.
