Alan Biggs' Sheffield United column: Good to see the Blades looking up, not down - at all levels

Crucially, Chris Wilder and the club’s owners are now acting in unison on what’s required to take the team forward.

It may have come late in the window, but Prince Abdullah’s sudden upping of the manager’s modest January budget (surmised here at around £9m) is as significant as whether Wilder actually lands club record target Sander Berge.

Doubtless there was a frank exchange preceding the firm offer for the young Norway midfielder to his Belgian club Genk.

All that matters is the signal that the Blades, at all levels, are looking up, not down - from a platform of near Premier League security promising a second season of income around £140m.

It is from this, rather than personal resources, that the Prince is likely to fund transfers at a time when around £50m must be found to buy out property from former owner Kevin McCabe.

Qualifying for Europe has to be a possibility now. But let’s also consider this.

By rights, United’s next half-dozen fixtures are as losable as they are winnable.

The league table says otherwise. And that, as much as any opposition, is what the Blades are up against in this second half of a wonderful season.

Now clear of a torrid run of games featuring Liverpool, Manchester City (twice) and Arsenal, Wilder’s men move on to teams the formbook says they should beat.

You’ll note that in the middle of that fearsome sequence they did the necessary with an important cushioning home win over West Ham.

It’s in that light that the next sequence of games will be seen ... against Crystal Palace, Bournemouth, Brighton, Aston Villa, Norwich and Newcastle.

Wilder is all for measuring his team against the standards they’ve set. Rightly so - there can’t really be any other way.

There’s certainly no room for excuses in advance but I’ll grant a few here. Where’s the failure in simply getting enough points in that run to guarantee Premier League survival? With a further eight games still to play!

Two wins and a draw would effectively do it. That’s the true measure of success this season.

So, while some might be anticipating 12 points plus from the next six, I’d say nine or ten would still be more than decent. Villa and Norwich apart, these are seasoned top-flight outfits.

Remarkably, United are looking like that as well.

At the risk of seeming negative - and as one who confidently tipped them to stay up - I’m continually staggered that so much has been achieved on so little.

The cautionary note would be that more than half the team, its bedrock, has slogged through the campaign virtually unchanged.

Human beings do get tired and have off-days. Doubtless Wilder has “budgeted” for that, but it will take a super-human effort to see out the season in the same vein.

Or perhaps we should expect that - no matter how unfair that would be?