Heckingbottom explains continued Sheffield Utd struggles

Paul Heckingbottom, the former Sheffield United manager, is not surprised they are still struggling.

The club chose to sack Heckingbottom in December and appoint club legend Chris Wilder.

While one or two performances have improved, the Blades are still rock bottom of the Premier League.

"No," he replied to talkSPORT about being surprised at the club's struggles.

And this is not a sob story but there are factors behind it. We sold players towards the start of the season and didn't recruit until the end of the window.

I saw the first few games as opportunities to win but we were playing with Chris Basham and Ollie Norwood as our midfield two and had Will Osula at 19 making his debut up front and Benie Traore, fresh in from Sweden.

"That was our team and from the bench we were bringing on academy players. That was it for the first few games. Add to it the nature of how we lost the players and the mentality of the group, they were fragile. They were fragile. And that was the toughest bit. You've still got to go and compete and make sure that the players believe they could compete as well.

"Then we signed a few good players towards the end of the window and there was a lift. The first game we played our team was Spurs away.

McAtee was in, Cam Archer, Vini Souza, Gus Hamer, and we conceded two late, late, late goals [in the 98th and 100th minutes] to lose. That was a blow, I'm not going to lie. You could feel the deflation. It was a blow. But we kept competing and competing and competing but the hardest thing when the results aren't coming is the belief and the mentality."