Sheffield United have avoided a hangover but Paul Heckingbottom demands they stay hungry

Regardless of what happens at Wigan Athletic this evening, the Blades will go into the turn where they want to be – in the Championship’s automatic promotion places.

Many of their rivals will say it is only where they should be. They do, after all, have the division’s second-biggest gates and parachute payments. More importantly, their squad is still stuffed with players signed for the Premier League.

But they could have had one big factor against them.

As some will no doubt be reminded in the next couple of weeks, a big hangover can be hard to shift. It took manager Paul Heckingbottom's appointment in November 2021 to finally clear the Blades' heads after a desperately disappointing relegation the season before, and 2022-23 could have provided just as big a psychological hurdle.

With the money and prestige on offer in the Premier League, the Championship play-offs have become such a big deal. Not winning them can be hard to take, particularly when you lose a semi-final penalty shoot-out on a night so contentious, the court proceedings were only wrapped up on Friday, when Oli McBurnie was cleared of assault in the chaos following the final whistle.

That can linger, and do damage.

The other beaten semi-finalists, Luton Town, are 15th. Finalists Huddersfield Town sit at the foot of the table, looking increasingly likely to follow the miserable lead set by Barnsley the previous year.

United's disappointment lingered for one game – a poor opening weekend in Watford – but since then their attitude has been admirable, particularly considering they have been so badly hampered by injuries.

Heckingbottom is certainly full of praise for the way his players have responded but it would not be him if he did not now demand more.

"If we'd have been sat here chatting about it in July, we'd have all been delighted, I certainly would," he says of his team's position, six points behind Burnley ahead of tonight's game in hand. "If we'd known what we'd have had to deal with (in terms of injures), I'd have snapped your hand off.

"I think the players get enough support and praise off us to then take the criticism and the pushing.

"If you are looking at what a lot of them have done – playing injured or out of position, putting themselves forward through necessity, trying to get back quicker or going game after game, whatever we've done to get ourselves in this position right now, everyone deserves a big big pat on the back.

"It probably says a lot more about the environment we’ve got than anything else."

So with praise out of the way, Heckingbottom can get back to the pushing.

"We need to be better in the second half," he says. "We want a better points return than we got in the first half (41 and counting). We have to behave and prepare in a way that's going to help us to do that."

It is, says the manager, all in the mind.

"Everything's about mentality," he insists. "We've got quality.

"But in this league there's some good squads and some dangerous players so when you're playing against them, we have to be at our best.

"The hungriest group always wins so we have to keep displaying the hunger every day and certainly on the pitch to keep picking up points.

"It will get tougher, there'll be more sides than us sat after this break (for the early stages of the World Cup) thinking they will get stronger, they're in a better position to pick up points. I know we are.

"We just have to keep that health and hunger in the squad and keep up performances."

Monday night will throw up a different test, Kolo Toure leading Wigan out for his first home game as manager.

The next examination will be one of stamina, nine points available in eight post-Christmas days. That is pretty typical for the Championship, but it will be the first time the bodies have been put under that strain since before the World Cup.

By the end of that run the transfer window will be open, and concentration will be key. Speculation about the futures of key players such as Iliman Ndiaye and Sander Berge is inevitable. How they and their team-mates deal with that will be important. There could be new faces to get to know and learn about.

Then it will be something else. The Championship never stops testing you but so far, the Blades' response has been so good.