Chris Wilder happy with ruthless first half as Sheffield United beat Leicester

Sheffield United manager Chris Wilder said his side “went for the jugular” after making a rapid start in their 3-2 win at Leicester.

Wilder’s side went two goals up inside the first four minutes at the King Power Stadium – and were three up before half-time.

Former Leicester striker Tom Cannon opened the scoring after only 64 seconds, with Jairo Riedewald adding a second.

Sydie Peck’s volley turned out to be the winner with Stephy Mavididi and Jordan James’s long range drive setting up a thrilling finish.

It was United’s third win in six days and lifted them out of the bottom three.

“We know if we win games of football, we’re going to climb the league,” said Wilder.

“But our approach, attitude and philosophy was not to come here, sit in and counter attack, we went for the jugular.

“We back ourselves to go and cause the opposition problems. We looked dangerous every time.”

But Wilder pointed to two rare slips from United goalkeeper Michael Cooper that let Leicester back into it after the break.

“When you’re 3-0 down, I always felt it was a dangerous game,” he said.

“Especially when Michael made a mistake for their first goal, he has to own that but he’s in credit.

“The atmosphere changed and Michael will be a little disappointed for their second goal – although it was a fabulous finish.

“But we are incredibly together and we had to withstand that pressure at the end, it was a test. It was a nervy finish. But the character of the team shone through.

“I told them that the game’s not over at 45 minutes and we knew Leicester would come out and take more risks, which they did.

“We had to deal with that, it’d be naive to think we would dominate for 95 minutes. This has been a ridiculous schedule for us with three games in six days, and maybe we were running on empty for the last 10 minutes.”

Leicester manager Marti Cifuentes admitted that the game was effectively decided in the opening four minutes and criticised his side for not meeting his standards in the first half.

It was the second game running his side has gone 3-0 down in the first half.

The Spanish coach was encouraged by his side’s second half display but realised it was not enough.

“It’s a game that was heavily influenced by the first four minutes,” he said.

“It’s difficult to swallow when you are 2-0 down after four minutes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before.

“There were some encouraging signals in the second half but the bar was never very high. It’s very frustrating, very disappointing. The first half is below the standards I want to set for the club.

“But to do it requires a certain level of things that we were definitely missing in the first half.

“Probably I said certain things that will stay in the dressing room but I’m happy with the reaction in the second half.

“I don’t believe in blame or excuse culture. We’ll look at what we didn’t do well and try to improve that.”

Leicester fans joined in a United chant of “you’re getting sacked in the morning” during the first half.

“I’m aware of that. I can’t hide from that,” said Cifuentes.

“We need to instil this togetherness, and I never said it would be easy.

“But I have achieved that in the other clubs I’ve been. It’s not the first time, I’ve had this song before. Fortunately for me, I’ve always had the confidence to turn things around.

“I’m very committed to giving the fans something back.

“I just hope they understand that I came here to fix something and that they let me fix this.”