Video: Adkins rues lack of quality as Sheffield United draw with Barnsley

Sheffield United boss Nigel Adkins admitted his side lacked enough quality to beat Barnsley and maintain their outside chance of making it into the play-offs.

In a game where there were few clear cut goalscoring opportunities for either side, a draw was a fair result but it suited the visitors more, with United needing nothing less than a victory.

Che Adams struck the post in the first half for the Blades and there were half chances near the end, notably for substitute Conor Sammon who was denied by a superb block, but United didn't create enough as Adkins said: "It was a competitive game, an old fashioned derby. Both teams needed to win the game, that's our fourth clean sheet in five games, however we needed to get the victory.

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"We've put balls into the box but maybe not with the quality we've needed at times. We just needed that one goal but it finsihed 0-0.

"I thought we were finishing strong, they were capable on the counter-attack. Sharp and Adams have been on fire but today I thought their centre-halves Mawson and Roberts did very well against them and gave them problems"

"The lads are working extremely hard. It was a hard earned away victory at Shrewsbury in midweek, Today was a competitive Yorkshire derby and unfortunately we haven't got the victory we needed. We needed to win it. It was zero-zero unfortunately that's it."

Adkins all but conceded that the opportunity to sneak into the top six places after a fine run had now come to an end, adding: "It's not mathematically impossible, stranger things have happened but we needed to win the game today."

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