Manchester United's loss leaves Premier League title race wide open

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Chennai, January 28: It was a night to forget for the Red Devils at the Old Trafford as they suffered a shock 1-2 loss to Sheffield United, leaving the Premier League title race wide open.

With Manchester City having toppled their neighbours from the top of the table after a 5-0 thrashing of West Bromwich Albion the previous day, a win over Sheffield, who had won just one Premier League game from 19 outings, would have taken United back to the pole, but instead they suffered an embarrassing loss.

Kean Bryan opened the scoring in the 23rd minute, with Harry Maguire cancelling it out with a header from a corner 15 minutes into the second half.

The Blades then put the final nail in the coffin when Oliver Burke scored in the 74th minute, condemning United to their fourth loss in Premier League and handing the advantage back to City.

United now continue to stay second in the Premier League table, a point behind leaders City who also have a game in hand.

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Red Devils boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was not happy with the match referee Peter Bankes letting Sheffield’s opener to stand, despite Billy Sharp’s contact with United’s keeper David De Gea.

The Norwegian also expressed his displeasure with the official’s decision to rule out Anthony Martial’s equaliser minutes later.

"It's a foul. Billy Sharp just runs into him (De Gea) so he can't get up, so it's a foul," Solskjaer said in the post-match press conference.

Speaking about Martial’s disallowed goal, Solskjaer said, "No foul, but it's this kind of season, inconsistencies, so it's going to be unpredictable. But it's two mistakes by the referee."

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For Blades, who are languishing at the bottom of the table, it was a morale boosting win and their first over the Red Devils since 1993.

Blades’ boss, Chris Wilder was understandably delighted about his team's performance, "We've to play close to near perfect to get results and if you make mistakes, then you get punished. It's a brutal league and you've to be at your best every week. You've to take those big moments and we took two, to give us a result," he said.