George Baldock reveals the secrets of Sheffield United's WhatsApp group and how it has helped them compete in the Premier League

Picking it up from a nearby coffee table and ignoring the frowns of his fellow guests, the defender was excited to discover the contents. Because it had been delivered to a group set up by members of Chris Wilder’s squad following their promotion from the Championship.

“It’s brilliant, the stuff that goes on there, all the banter and the jokes,” Baldock revealed last night. “I remember that one, it was a picture of the Premier League table with the first 19 positions blanked out saying: ‘You can’t predict anything in this division.’ And then down there, in 20th, was us. We were all laughing at it but, to be honest, it also added fuel to our fire.”

One year later, as they prepare for tomorrow’s visit to Burnley ranked seventh in the table, Baldock and his team mates have enjoyed the last laugh over everyone who reckoned they would be down by Christmas. After beating Tottenham Hotspur at Bramall Lane on Thursday, they are now being described as possible European contenders rather than top-flight cannon fodder. Although Baldock still refuses to entertain that prospect - “Never get too high, and never get too low, that’s one of our principles” - it is instructive that he still remembers every last detail of the jokes being bandied around about United’s survival chances.

“There was all this stuff at the time, going on about how we weren’t taking the Premier League seriously because we weren’t spending tons of money and bringing all these household names in,” Baldock continued. “Tons of people were going out of their way to tell us how we should just enjoy it, being up there, and then get ready to go straight back down.

“To be fair, we just used to laugh at it. Myself and all of the rest of the lads, we always had confidence in our ability and confidence in the fact we thought we could compete at this level. Obviously going out there and actually doing it was a different story. But I’m not going to lie and tell you that all of the stuff that was getting brought up in the media and being put on social media didn’t give us an even greater incentive to prove people wrong.”

United’s trip to the North-West pits them against another unfancied and supposedly unfashionable club with a knack of defying expectations. Indeed, speaking ahead of the game at Turf Moor, Wilder described Sean Dyche’s side as the perfect example for his own players to follow when, next term, they attempt to establish a foothold among England’s elite level clubs.

“I’m expecting a competitive game,” he said, following the win over Spurs. “In our environment, we talk about them and what they’ve done in terms of consistency. How they develop players, how they sell a few and reinvest. It’s phenomenal really and if we stay here as long as they have, then we’ll have done a lot of things right.”

Although Baldock echoed his manager’s sentiments when he previewed this weekend’s contest, he reminded that United have brought their own distinct style to a division where many clubs simply try and replicate the tactics employed by the likes of Liverpool and Manchester City. The former MK Dons defender, whose attacking prowess makes him pivotal to Wilder’s pioneering take on the 3-5-2 system, insisted that has been pivotal to United’s success so far this season.

“We’ve done this our way,” Baldock said. “The gaffer has been successful wherever he’s been and he told us he wasn’t going to rip up our playbook at the start of the season. We believed in what we were doing and we believed we could stamp our mark on things.”

Passion, however, is nothing without prowess. Languishing in League One when he was appointed four years ago, Wilder has been able to spend the past three-and-a-bit seasons perfecting United’s choreography because of a recruitment strategy which emphasises the importance of signing players with the potential to develop.

“One of the really good things here, and one of the things I really believe has helped us, is that we were all given the chance to show we can perform at this level,” Baldock said. “You see a lot of teams come up, change everything, and then it doesn’t work out."

“I came in when we were in the Championship,” Baldock continued. “But there’s lads here who have been with the gaffer all the way through from League One and they tell me he’s not changed a bit, with how he goes about things, since then. I’ve spoken with people who worked with him even before he came here too and they’ll tell you the same."

United triumphed 3-0 when they faced Burnley in November.

After entering the meeting with Jose Mourinho’s side on the back of three straight defeats, with one of those coming against Arsenal in the FA Cup, Baldock said: “When we were winning, everyone was talking about the Champions League. When we lost a few, everyone was saying our bubble had burst.

“All we focus on is the next game and, if we do that, we can make a really good season into a memorable one.”

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