Sheffield United capitulate in Ramsdale’s absence
Slavisa Jokanovic admitted Sheffield United were effectively powerless to prevent the impending £24million sale of goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale to Arsenal.
Ramsdale was omitted from United’s squad at The Hawthorns with the deal poised to go through after the 23-year-old turned down an improved contract offer to stay at Bramall Lane.
“It’s not really what I want but it’s difficult to stop this kind of situation,” admitted United manager Jokanovic after last night’s defeat, which saw West Bromwich Albion go top of the Championship table.
“It’s a huge deal for the club and we have been relegated from the Premier League, so it’s complicated to say no. It is 99 per cent to go through.”
Jokanovic will now hope to be able to reinvest to strengthen his squad after taking just one point from the first three league games and failing to register a goal.
“I can’t say how much we will invest but we will definitely need to
invest some of this money on an improvement to the squad,” added the former Watford and Fulham head coach.
Ramsdale’s replacement Michael Verrips endured a forgettable night in the face of a set-piece onslaught from West Brom which yielded three goals, with the Dutchman at fault for two of them.
“It was Michael’s first game in the
Championship and it was not an easy night for him,” said Jokanovic. “They pushed us off the field.”
West Brom led in the 26th minute when Darnell Furlong’s long throwin resulted in United left-back Jack Robinson heading the ball into his own goal.
The lead was doubled in the 47th minute when Verrips missed two chances to catch Alex Mowatt’s corner,
before Dara O’shea poked the ball home.
Six minutes later it was 3-0 when Mowatt started and finished a delightful move, running beyond the Blades defence before coolly side-footing past Verrips.
Callum Robinson then volleyed in on 59 minutes to make it four after another Furlong throw-in was flicked on by Kyle Bartley.
West Brom head coach Valerien Ismael praised his players for sticking to their plan.
“I think we were really focused on the game plan. We know we could have scored at any time and we were really strong at set-pieces,” he said.
“The first part of the game plan was to frustrate the opponent and when we saw this, we had the confidence to carry on.
“We said at half-time to go for the opponent and once we got a second goal, we went for a third and once we got a third, we went for the fourth. I think we were ruthless.”
Ismael said Furlong’s long throwins are the result of lots of work on the training ground.
“We work on set-pieces with the guys. We have a special session with Adam Murray [assistant coach] and he made great goals from this with Barnsley last season and he’s doing the same this season,” he said.
“It’s all about organisation and the positions we take up in the opponents’ box to put the pressure on the ball. Such a weapon can open the game up for us and we need to make the most of that.”