Paul Heckingbottom shows brave decisions reap rewards for Sheffield United - Alan Biggs

Nearly three weeks on, the 1-0 loss at home to Luton seems increasingly like a watershed moment.

Not only did it climax the clamour for Tommy Doyle and James McAtee but ironically, and in a strange way, it galvanised support for the manager.

The main fall-out from that Bramall Lane no-show was criticism of Heckingbottom for not starting with either of the Manchester City loanees. Fair enough.

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It’s a reasonable rule of thumb that if a team loses a match then the manager has not picked the right team, albeit in hindsight.

Shame on Hecky, he’s picked 17 wrong ones in his time at the helm. Out of 73!

Make that 41 right ones and 15 ok ones. Win percentage, a remarkable 56.16%.

Now, we all know this but I mention for three reasons;-

1. Even Hecky is not infallible and beyond criticism.
2. The extension of that by some, even a minority, to call for his head was beyond ludicrous, just utter madness.
3. Mistakes are fine as long as they are learned from.

The third of those is the most important - witness the Doyle-McAtee impact in the recovery win at Sunderland and the FA Cup victory over Blackburn.

Having achieved a physical graduation through the season in adapting to the hurly-burly of proper football, these two fine talents are absolute aces in United’s pack for the promotion run-in.

Not that Ollie Norwood and John Fleck won’t figure or play a part. They have too much character and pride to take their displacement lying down - and, in Norwood’s case, it would have been unthinkable a few weeks ago for the Blades to bench their chief orchestrator.

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So considerable strength has come from the adversity of some much overblown panic in some quarters. And I honestly think it could be a blessing in disguise that the two City youngsters can’t face their parent club in the FA Cup semi-final - with the Blades tackling West Brom in the Championship in the immediate aftermath.

Which brings me to the entitlement for Hecky to be cut some slack when the next balloon goes up.

Since taking charge amid an absolute muddle after the early dismissal of Slavisa Jokanovic in November, 2021, the former Barnsley manager has done/is doing an absolutely phenomenal job - and that would be the case even without the well documented problems off the field.

Thankfully most Blades realise that. And hopefully they will drown out the minority who don’t seem to realise when they are well off.