Russell Martin admits Swansea City urgently need to stop the “dumb moments” that cost them so much after their 3-0 defeat by Sheffield United.

Goals from Sander Burge, Jack Robinson and former Swansea striker Ollie McBurnie gave the Blades a convincing win over Martin’s team at Bramall Lane and ensured the visitors have won just twice in their last 14 league games.

The visiting South Yorkshire defense left a lot to be desired at times, and Martin says Paul Heckingbottom’s side were the better of some of the game’s ‘non-negotiables’ when teams collide.

“They have a real quality to punish you with moments like that. We’re playing against a team that handles the game better than anyone else in the league,” said the 37-year-old.

“I think it’s the worst team to lose. Today there are positive things. I think we all feel worse about what happened last week (against Birmingham City).

“This is a difficult day for us. At the beginning of the game I felt comfortable and confident. But we conceded an unfortunate goal.

“Then a free kick hits the post, we have a lot of bodies, Ryan (Manning) slips, they replay and score and that probably sums up where both teams are.

“They are really direct and aggressive in their responses, we messed up and we made a mistake and we went in.

“It’s the same as last week. Third, we give the ball away, but we have many times to fix it. We have two or three guys coming back, facing our goal. If we advance a little, the ball will not go. We didn’t even get to McBurney and ended up hitting the center of the goal.

“Whether they want to play, whether they want to be direct, play on the counterattack or try to control the ball like we do, that part of the game is very important, it’s non-negotiable and we’re not playing well enough.” now Sheffield United do it brilliantly, it makes a big difference.

“We have to stop with the silly moments. As a group of employees, we’ve been looking at the goals we’ve conceded over the last few weeks and trying to understand them and see if there’s a pattern to them.

“One example is that we make a lot of mistakes, teams don’t have to try hard enough. The number of goals we score due to individual mistakes is small. We have to work really hard for ours.”

Swansea have dropped to 15th in the Championship table following their loss to the Blades, whilst they are now seven points short of a play-off place.

The Swans are back in action against Blackpool in south Wales on Wednesday night, a crucial spell if they are to finish in the top six at the end of the campaign.

“It’s a great game for us,” Martin said of the clash with Mick McCarthy’s team. “Blackpool are fighting for their lives. We need to recover. Any game after two defeats is a great game, no matter where you are.”

“People are going to feel like it’s a bigger game than it is because of everything that’s happened in the last few weeks, and that’s understandable.

“We have an extremely young team, if you look at the difference in experience at this level and outside the Premier League between the two teams, it is quite different.

“So that’s where we are. We have to keep building, trying to grow and trying to show courage.”

Source: Wales Online