Aston Villa manager Dean Smith was furious with the attitude and application of his players against Sheffield United.

Villa dropped three points after losing to the bottom-placed Blades.

A 1-0 win for the Blades came through a David McGoldrick goal, even though the Sheffield club were down to ten men after a 57th minute red card was shown to Phil Jagielka.

Speaking to reporters postgame, Smith said: "It was a very, very frustrating game from our point of view. We had the best chances in the first half and ended up going in a goal down.

"I can't remember Emi (Martinez) being worked at all throughout the game, in all honesty, and then we conceded a really poor goal.

"McGoldrick switches the play from the halfway line and we don't follow him. I think he runs off the back of John McGinn and then Elmo attempts to let the ball run out of play not knowing he was behind him. It was a really soft knowing we were a goal down in a game that we were on top of.

"In the second half we started really well; we were crisper on the ball and had a couple of half chances and the big change in the game was the sending off.

"For 35 minutes we were camped in their final third but we never showed enough quality on the ball or with our runs to make that count. The chances we had were made by the players themselves; from Bert (Traore) and Ezri Konsa. With the quality of players we had out there we should have created more."