Kevin Blackwell's next task as United manager is to ensure his players learn from the Carling Cup defeat at Arsenal on Tuesday night.

The Blades slipped to a 6-0 defeat at the Emirates Stadium against Arsene Wenger's stars of tomorrow with Mexican striker Carlos Vela helping himself to a hat-trick.

In the aftermath, Blackwell stated: "Sometimes you just have to hold your hands up and admit that you have been beaten by a better team. We have to move forward in the right way, if we learn from this experience it won't be too bad a night, if we don't learn then we are in trouble.

"I expected certain things which didn't happen and we will talk about that but whatever we did we wouldn't have got credit. That Arsenal side would have done what they did to us to most sides."

Blackwell added: "We had a great set of fans down here and I'd like to apologise to them if they feel we have let them down, we know we have to improve but I can't afford to get carried away.

"We have a great set of lads and I love working with them, let's see how they respond against Watford on Saturday."

United took a full allocation 2,900 fans to boost the crowd at the Emirates Stadium to 56,632.