The Blades’ chief had been talking up his side’s play-off hopes before a Carrow Road defeat against a Norwich outfit who have picked up more points than any other second tier team in 2026.

Wilder felt the visitors blew the perfect start, with Jairo Riedewald’s opener later cancelled out by Jack Stacey and Amankwah Forson.

“They’re obviously in decent nick, since the manager has come in, I knew it was going to be a difficult game, the way they’ve been playing and the results that they’re having,” he said. “They are in a false position (in the table), but I think we quietened the crowd and we nullified Kenny (McLean) dropping into the back three and Sam Field dropping in and we were in a good place.

“We got the opening goal and in my opinion had the lion’s share of the chances as well, but just not smooth enough really, when we turned it over, we had some really good opportunities to go and get that second goal and then they grew into the game at the back end of the first half.

“That was through us just turning the ball over, just making some really poor decisions and even at the start of the second half, and it gives energy to the players, it gives energy to the supporters and it makes it a difficult game with their good players.

“Even though the goals, from our point of view, are ridiculously poor ones, it was coming because of our inability to take any control of the game. 

“You know that you’re going to come under some pressure, you know you have to withstand that. We make poor decisions and all of a sudden you give those players they’ve got the opportunity to go and put pressure on you, and they’re going to do that and hurt you.”

Wilder is refusing to give up on faint top six hopes for a club who went to the play-off final 12 months or so ago.

“Things have changed pretty quickly, they’ve changed in a week from our point of view,” he said. “We’ve always been in touching distance and everybody sees all the results and there’s so many teams that are up and down.

“Possibly the only team that isn’t really up and down is our opponents in this game since the manager came in. We’ve got close on so many times to cut it down and then we don’t take that opportunity.

“We’ve missed a couple of opportunities over the last couple of games and if we want to win games of football we’ve got to take those opportunities and be better than what we’re doing.”