Blades’ chief Chris Wilder launched an astonishing verbal assault on Norwich City after his side’s first Championship defeat in five games.

Yanic Wildschut earned Daniel Farke’s men an impressive away win in a third consecutive clean sheet but Wilder - who was dismissed from the home technical area in a feisty second half - was unhappy with everything from City’s perceived time-wasting to their late arrival at Bramall Lane prior to kick-off.

“Dear me, where do you start?” he said. “They put the team sheet in at 1:45pm but was there a lot of traffic around Sheffield about 1pm? Well, get here a bit earlier then. What you do is get a coach driver to do his job and find out if you are in the city centre there might be a bit of traffic. There might be a bit of traffic around 1:30pm at a football stadium when about 28,000 are turning up.

“Do a little bit of homework and possibly set off 10 minutes earlier. There wasn’t a crash on the M1 or whatever, they came up on Friday night. Get to the game on time and show the opposition manager and captain and referee and fourth official and the assistant and the assessor a little bit of respect.

“That is my first one, 1:45pm, not there, on my own.


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“Sat in the changing room at half-time when the referee had blown the whistle and my players are out on the pitch. That is the second thing. Get out on the pitch on time. I will let you make up your own mind on how we set our team up, how they set their team up and what it represents.

“Obviously I had to deal with a couple of little issues. I felt we should have had a penalty first half. To be fair, they could have had one late on but the time-wasting issues are ridiculous.

“I think referees have to get to the bottom of that earlier and a bit quicker. They are the custodians of the game and they have a duty. I know there is a fine line between being professional and taking the mick. People say you get it added on at the end but it breaks up the flow.”