Lincoln City joint-head coach Chris Cohen admitted the Imps had opportunities to unsettle Sheffield United before the hosts’ quality ultimately told at Bramall Lane.
City started competitively and created a couple of early openings, with Freddie Draper and Rob Street having efforts before the Blades began to grow into the contest. Sheffield United took the lead shortly before half-time, added a second through Tahith Chong early in the second period and wrapped up a 3-0 win when Patrick Bamford struck his second late on.
Chris felt Lincoln had achieved their early objective of making the game uncomfortable for the hosts, but acknowledged the goals were moments City will want to study closely.
“Yeah, I thought for half an hour we were fair game for being level,” he said, speaking to the written press.
“We wanted to come and try and create some nervousness. We understood there’s a bit of tension around the position that Sheffield United are in and where they want to be.
“I thought we did that, and then obviously a moment of quality. We need to go back and see if that was something structurally that me, Tom and the staff could have done better for the players, or if it was something that they weren’t quite able to implement to help it not happen.
“The goals were really good goals, but we always feel like we can stop them, so we weren’t able to do that, unfortunately.”
Despite the scoreline, Cohen was keen to highlight the response from the players and the importance of maintaining the same intensity even when the game had moved beyond them.
“It’s just so important to never give in. I thought Ben House, in the last 10, 12, 15 minutes, was still doing exactly what Ben House does in the first minute, and that’s really important.
“We’re going to have some tough games, some tough days. We understand that. We don’t want them, we’re never going to settle for them, but we know as a group of players that we’re capable of coming to Sheffield United and getting a result.
“We weren’t able to do that today, but when we are on our mettle, when we go and try and stress teams in the way that we do, we know we can beat anyone.
“We’re going to have some days like today, but what’s really important is that we don’t get disappointed and we try and fly into the next game, which is four days away.”
The defeat was City’s heaviest of the Championship season so far, but Chris’s message was centred on perspective rather than panic. We had enough in the opening half-hour to trouble Sheffield United, and the challenge now is to respond quickly rather than allow one difficult afternoon to become anything more than that.
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