A poor first half for the Blades but they certainly found their feet in the second. A deserved, well crafted opener and a second soon after proved more than enough to kill off Charlton aspirations. And now a cup semi final and Wembley to look forward to. By contrast, Sunderland just didn’t turn up at Hull and were poor throughout. First goal was a quality header but the next two were a direct result of very careless defending. Didn’t seem up for it. Clearly, Premiership survival is the priority, but when you play that badly it must be a concern that this kind of performance will be replicated in the next couple of critical “six-pointers”. It would have been a United-Sunderland semi as well – shame.
Terrific effort by the blades in the semi, especially first half, but just not quite up to it in the end. Augurs well for next season though. And it appears that quarter final defeat did knock the stuffing out of Sunderland. They can’t buy a win, have by all accounts played poorly and, at the time of writing, it is looking more than a little bleak