Ross Barkley revealed Chelsea players held up their hands and confessed they were not good enough after failing to win again at the Bridge.
This transitional season was always going to be testing with a transfer ban and a rookie head coach.
But Chelsea have struggled after selling star man Eden Hazard and have been held at home by Leicester and now Sheffield United – matches the Europa League winners would have won last season with the Belgian.
There was no X factor from a team too slow and predictable on the ball and too sloppy at the back. It took 45 minutes – and a rollocking from manager Chris Wilder – for the Blades to realise the hosts were vulnerable.
Chelsea boss Frank Lampard, who is still waiting his first home win, appealed for patience after the youngest side the Blues have ever fielded in the Premier League failed to hold on to a two-goal lead.
And patience will be needed on the evidence of this display against last season’s Championship runners-up.
Barkley said: “There’s loads of talent in there in the changing room. The players we’ve got are unbelievable but today we weren’t at the level we should be. We didn’t perform well.
“You’ve just got to try and make things happen and we didn’t create enough chances, didn’t hit the target as much as we should have.
“But we all know. We all spoke in the changing room after the game and we all held our hands up. Tammy scored two goals but he can’t win the game on his own.”
Tammy Abraham scored twice in the first 43 minutes, the first after a mistake from keeper Dean Henderson and the second after a collision between Jack O’Connell and John Egan. “They were ridiculous goals,” said Wilder. But neither boss was happy at half-time.
While Wilder “smashed” Henderson and striker Callum Robinson – who missed a great chance before the second Chelsea goal – Lampard told his team about the “warning signs” from the opening period.
Lampard said: “I wasn’t happy. We had to move the ball quicker. We were taking too much time.”
But 49 seconds after the break Robinson pulled a goal back and then Sheffield United were rewarded for bringing on two more strikers when Kurt Zouma deflected home the Republic of Ireland striker’s 89th-minute cross.
Lampard was asked if game-management problems were inevitable with such a young squad.
“I don’t know about inevitable because I don’t want to say that but we are obviously having those issues,” he said. “It is not just the young players – it is up to all of us to resolve the issue.”
The return of N’Golo Kante and Antonio Rudiger will add experience to a side which saw defender Fikayo Tomori make his first start and teenager Billy Gilmour come off the bench. But for all the promise of Mason Mount, there is no replacement for Hazard.
“It’s easy for you to say that now because of today’s performance but if we go and beat Liverpool 3-0 in two weeks what are you going to say then?” said Barkley.
“You can’t compare us to the past because things change. We’re going through a bit of a development phase at the minute but we can still perform really well over the season and surprise a lot of people.”
