The behind closed doors game being staged at Sheffield United's training complex

With United set to begin the new campaign on Monday, when Wolverhampton Wanderers are the visitors to Bramall Lane, Wilder wants to expose the likes of Oliver Burke, Ethan Ampadu, Jayden Bogle and Max Lowe to his interpretation of the 3-5-2 formation - which revolves around the use of attacking wing-backs and overlapping centre-halves.

Jack Robinson, who joined United from Nottingham Forest in January, has previously spoken about the difficulty of mastering the system Wilder devised soon after taking charge in 2016. Acknowledging it must be perfectly choreographed in order to function properly, the United manager took the decision to arrange the fixture between two teams made-up entirely of first team and development squad players.

“We felt it was important to do it,” Wilder explained. “We can work on things in the video room and point things out but ultimately, the quickest way players learn is by actually ‘doing’. So that’s why we’re doing this, between ourselves.”

“We’ll make changes as we would usually during preseason,” he added. “We’ve not been able to do that during our friendlies because of everything (Covid-19) happening to the schedule. The matches we’ve had, and with internationals too, means we’ve not always been able to do what we’d have liked.”

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