Neil Thompson reflected on a frustrating afternoon across the city at Bramall Lane as his 10-man Under-21s were edged out 1-0 by Sheffield United.
Louie Marsh scored the only goal of a close derby affair after Adam Alimi-Adetoro saw an earlier yellow card upgraded to red.
In the main, Wednesday gave as good as they got but the reshuffled defence was breached midway through the second half.
Thompson said: “It was nip and tuck for the first half an hour or so before the sending-off. We were more than in the game, we had a good attitude about us and we stopped them opening us up.
“Adam went to ground and that gave the referee a decision to make and he’s picked up another yellow card. After that we had to adjust and change our system and they’ve scored with the one real chance they had with a free header.
“After that, they’ve had to put a real shift in because it’s hard work when you’re playing with 10 men for an hour.”
The Under-21s are next in action at Hull early next month.