The Carling Cup exit at the hands of Hartlepool on Wednesday at least brought some clarity to Kevin Blackwell's thinking as he prepares for Saturday's first home league fixture.

The United boss saw his depleted side succumb to a goal in each half and afterwards admitted that some questions had been answered:

"I now know who can do a job for us and a couple of our youngsters have had a taste of first-team football, but one or two fringe players didn't exactly do themselves any favours.

"Going behind early wasn't something the youngsters had experienced before and that is a learning curve for them, but we had to give youth a chance - with Saturday in mind - I had to protect Ward and Quinn who have had injuries to overcome.

"I felt for some of the players who had to play in midweek and on Saturday but, thankfully, there were no further injuries."

"Johnny Ertl had to play at centre-half even though I want to see him in midfield, and overall we didn't have enough experience and knowledge on the pitch to cope, so all credit to Hartlepool."

The selection problems caused by international selection, injury and suspension contributed to the Blades joining the sizeable number of Championship clubs biting the dust in the first round, and Blackwell echoed the chorus of many other managers not enamoured with the domestic programme being disrupted:

"We only finished the World Cup a few weeks ago, league managers are just getting their teams sorted out and we have an International friendly straight away.

"With the economy starting to dictate that we carry smaller squads we can't cope with three or four players being called up at once - teams sometimes can't fill the seven seats on the bench even where there are no internationals.

"Some players have had to learn the hard way tonight because Hartlepool caught us cold and the penalty was a very soft award, but we will have players back for Saturday and will be a lot stronger."