Sheffield United boss Chris Wilder plays down post-match melee as Burnley stay five points clear

Burnley’s promotion rivals have endured a nightmare week, slipping from top spot down to third, where they’re now five points adrift of Scott Parker’s men with only four games remaining.

The Blades missed the chance to cut that gap this lunchtime when they squandered the lead to lose 2-1 to bottom side Plymouth Argyle.

Following the game, Wilder confronted a couple of Argyle players who were celebrating their dramatic late victory near the away end. Emotions quickly boiled over and the melee continued into the tunnel.

Wilder, however, played down the scenes, commenting: “Yeah, nothing really.

“There are three stands and our supporters are right near the dugout. No issue with the home team players celebrating what is a massive victory for them.

“They were possibly 10 or 15 minutes away from having a virtually impossible situation of trying to stay up in the Championship.

“There were emotions all over the place but there was no issue from their manager or from me. Emotions, massively, were running high. It’s a huge, huge victory for them, from 75 minutes onwards and for us it’s a massive defeat.”

It comes days after Wilder branded his own fans as an “absolute disgrace” after abusing his players following last weekend’s defeat at Oxford.

Wilder’s players headed over to the away end at the Kassam Stadium to applaud the travelling fans, only to be met by abuse and unsavoury gestures from a section of the away end.

“Do you know what? I think it's an absolute disgrace,” he said. “An absolute disgrace to the players who represent the football club and what they’ve done this season.

“I was speaking to my media guy before and he was telling me to stay away from it, but I’ll meet it head on. It's a joke and a disgrace. If that's what you think of the players then when we have the good days, don’t be clapping.

“Go home. Be consistent. If you want to come and wait for us to fail and abuse us, verbally and gesturing with abusive hand signals, give your ticket up to someone who wants to be there. Because there are loads of people who can’t get tickets who’d love the opportunity to back us.”

Burnley boss Scott Parker, meanwhile, continues to try and detach himself from the emotions of such an intense promotion battle.

Speaking after Friday night’s 2-1 win over Norwich City, Parker said: “It's very cliche, but you just never, ever get involved in the emotion of what this division can bring and at this part of the season, certainly what it can bring as well.

“The people that get involved in the emotion of it, nine times out of ten, my experiences tell me that they normally fail.”

Elsewhere in the race for the top two, Leeds United edged past Preston North End 2-1 to reclaim top spot.

Burnley, who still have Sheffield United to play, need just seven points from their remaining four games to clinch promotion.