Sheffield United manager Paul Heckingbottom has insisted that the Blades were the "better team" and the "better players" than Nottingham Forest after their Championship play-off semi-final.
The visitors did, of course, win the second leg in 90 minutes to cancel out Forest's 2-1 advantage from Brammal Lane with second-half goals from Morgan Gibbs-White and John Fleck. They only converted the same amount of shots in the shootout, though, with just Sander Berge and Iliman Ndiaye beating Brice Samba.
Their downfall was Oliver Norwood and Conor Hourihane, two experienced Championship campaigners, seeing their first two spot-kicks saved and leaving the rest of their takers with little room for error. That saw Gibbs-White step up fifth and again only find the gloves of the Reds goalkeeper after finally finishing a stuttering run-up.
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"I don't want to be disrespectful to Forest, I really don't, because credit to them and big congratulations to them they have got to the final," Heckingbottom said via our colleagues at Yorkshire Live. "But we were the better team, we had the better players. I wanted us to show that and I thought we did."
In terms of the basic stats on the night, the former Mansfield Town midfielder may have had a case, but it is far from clear cut. Forest were outshot 20 to 14, with the visitors registering two more on target while just about edging possession with 52%.
