Winning tight games can become a habit without anyone pinning down the exact reason - beyond a strong team ethic.

Last season Sheffield United were masters of it, most of the way to a play-off final.

This season the Blades are being edged out of points with a regularity that Chris Wilder has pinpointed as a problem.

But, as with the reverse of that, the puzzle is knowing exactly why.

United’s manager believes, with some justification, that there should be the quality in his ranks to provide a solution.

So it’s perplexing when, as in last Saturday’s deeply frustrating home draw with West Brom, it is not delivered.

“Other teams find a way to win,” he told me. “Teams above us find a way. That’s why they’ve got more points.

“In these sort of situations we’re not doing it. This has happened a few times this season so I’ve got to get my head around that.

“I’ve got to find a way to make that better. There’s not a lot of room for us giving away two points.”

That last comment tells you Wilder hasn’t given up on top six yet - and let’s be honest, it’s some achievement to be talking in those terms after the start he inherited.

Of course, a simpler reason could have been offered for last week’s slip. United just didn’t play well, falling badly adrift of their usual rhythm and fluency.

Except that last season they were winning regardless. Certainly Wilder isn’t in the market for excuses, particularly where the front of his team is concerned.

He has an enviable array of attacking players with the likes of Callum O’Hare, Gus Hamer, Andre Brooks and the three main strikers, Patrick Bamford, Tyrese Campbell and Tommy Cannon.

Somewhere in there should be a way of tilting close games.

It’s one thing knowing it and another finding it. But it has to be the latter and quickly from this point, writing ahead of Norwich away in midweek.