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Speed hails Blades response

Image: Speed: Half-time verbals

Gary Speed was delighted with the second-half response of his Sheffield United side in the win against Hull City.

United boss delighted with the performance at KC stadium

Gary Speed was delighted with the response of his Sheffield United side following his tough half-time team-talk as they beat Hull City 1-0 at the KC stadium. Mark Yeates was the United hero as his superb solo effort was enough to see off Nigel Pearson's Tigers. "I'm delighted with the result and the performance," Speed said. "In the first half we looked solid in defence, but on the ball we were poor. At half-time I had a word with them and told them that they needed to have more belief. "Sometimes we don't do ourselves justice and don't show enough belief, but in the second half we did and we started to create a few chances."

Performances

The win lifts United above their opponents in the Championship. "We have had two good performances, but we've got to carry it on," Speed said. "In this league you can't have off days because you'll get caught out and get punished. "We haven't had two back-to-back wins this season yet, but we've got to go to Doncaster on Saturday and believe in ourselves when we're on the ball." On Yeates, he added: "The goal was no surprise to me, but in the first half he was a shadow of himself and how he played on Saturday because he didn't have enough belief. "I told him at half-time to buck up his ideas and he did."
No excuses
Yeates' strike was the first goal Hull have conceded at home this season, but that is of little consolation to manager Nigel Pearson who made no excuses for the defeat. "You can't keep keeping clean sheets at home," he said. "It was a bad goal to concede and I don't think we were unlucky tonight. There are no excuses. "I'm getting a bit tired of coming out and saying the same things after games and seeing us being negative in possession and turning down the opportunity to cross the ball. "There should be a lot more (goals), but we need to give our strikers the chance to score goals. It is something we've got to solve. "It's disappointing again because we haven't made the opposition work hard enough and we haven't put them under enough pressure. It's another missed opportunity. "There's not a lot in the games in this division, and we've only scored four goals at home, and now we've conceded one. "Defensively we've had one or two heavy defeats but we have otherwise been pretty tight. At the minute for whatever reason we're not producing the goals and it's something that needs to be rectified."