Sheffield United’s abysmal performance against Arsenal last night live on Sky was yet another low-point in a season full of them.
The Blades were put to the sword inside 15 minutes as Arsenal were rampant in the final third and by half-time it was 5-0 and another miserable night at Bramall Lane for the home side.
For Chris Wilder, there is so much to think about and digest that he’s probably taken the day off today to simply recover from the shock factor of another heavy defeat.
William Saliba stat highlights Arsenal demolition of Sheffield United
Of course, we must also credit Arsenal. This is a team who are right at the top of their game at the moment and they’ll hammer better teams than Sheffield United by similar score-lines.
Mikel Arteta has got his team playing a fabulous brand of football and every single player is comfortable with the ball. And that was evident in the stats.
Indeed, that was highlighted in a remarkable statistic shared by Fabrizio Romano last night about William Saliba and the Sheffield United team.
Taking to social media to share the information, Romano revealed that Saliba had completed a whopping 169 passes last night, which was more than the entire Sheffield United team. For context, according to WhoScored, United’s top contributor in terms of passes was the goalkeeper, Ivo Grbic, with 27.
Impossible to compete at times
There has to be an element of realism about the result last night. Yes, the Sheffield United players put in a shocking display and at times looked like they didn’t even want to put a challenge in.
But you have to remember this is an Arsenal squad that has been put together to the tune of around £500m+ over a few transfer windows.
Declan Rice, Martin Odegaard and Jorginho in the midfield cost £150m alone, while Kai Havertz was a £65m signing. At the back, Saliba (£27m) and Gabriel (£27m) cost more than £60m between them while goalkeeper David Raya and back-up Aaron Ramsdale were another £60m.
The gulf in quality and resources in the Premier League is now simply enormous and for a team like Sheffield United, who don’t have rich owners, it’s becoming nigh on impossible.
So while yes, we should compete better and not make such basic errors, an element of perspective is needed as well.