Sheffield United manager Paul Heckingbottom refuses to use 'ridiculous' restrictions as excuse

On Sunday the Blades will have the chance to reach their first FA Cup semi-final for nine years at the end of a week where they strengthened their grip on a second automatic promotion place with a 2-1 win at Sunderland.

It comes almost in spite of how the club has been run from higher up this season.

A transfer embargo has been in place since January for not paying transfer debts, and the financial problems are such that owner Prince Abdullah bin Musaid Al Saud is looking to sell the club now for £90m rather than hold out until promotion to the world's most lucrative domestic football league, which would allow him to demand a bigger price.

The planned sale itself is in some doubt, with the Football League going public last month to say the Blades and prospective buyer Dozy Mmobuosi still had outstanding questions to answer.

A national newspaper claimed on Friday cost-cutting measures introduced at the club included limiting the use of fertiliser on training pitches and even paint around its sites in an attempt to avoid a situation where they are unable to pay their players, or go into administration.

Clubs who go into administration before Thursday will be docked 15 points for this season, ending the Blades’ promotion hopes. Going in afterwards would mean if they did go up, the deduction next term would make relegation all but inevitable, and damage the chances of a takeover.

Shockingly, these problems come with the Blades still receiving parachute payments following relegation from the Premier League two years ago.

It all adds to the achievement if they defeat Championship rivals Blackburn Rovers in Sunday's noon quarter-final, but manager Heckingbottom would rather keep those issues beneath the surface.

"I could sit here and tell you everything we're dealing with for a sob story but I don't want that narrative because it doesn't fit with what I'm telling the players about excuses," he said. "I'm not going to do it.

"There's been a hell of a lot going off. Even last week, some things are ridiculous we're having to do but we do it.

"The story should be how well we're doing in spite of these things. There are things going off which are unacceptable, really, but we have to deal with it.

"Sometimes I've felt like coming out swinging and sharing a lot of things because there's not a chance that anyone I'm working with here deserves any sort of negativity against them.

"We know it comes with the job but I feel like saying, 'Come on then, how would you deal with it?' Everyone would just laugh.

"Everyone needs to believe me when I'm saying it and come and back the players because if they'd seen them shoveling snow the other day just to get training on (undersoil heating was installed in the summer but has not been properly utilised), they'd have been thinking something different.

"I don't think the players have experienced anything like this before. I have, I'm used to this type of thing.

"If we want it to affect us, things like that will be an excuse."

It also irks him that some opposition managers say Sheffield United are only where they should be given their squad.

"I find it strange when managers are saying someone else's players are better than theirs,” he said.

"Every (transfer) window we've had to cut the playing budget."

Some managers use progress in the cup competitions as an excuse but Heckingbottom won promotion from League One via the play-offs as Barnsley manager in 2016 having lifted the Football League Trophy at Wembley that April.

So he is urging his side to take their opportunity to get to the national stadium in the FA Cup semi-finals, and says the fact Sunday's game is followed by a two-week international break means he does not have to worry so much about resting players.

"You don't know in advance but that helped us immensely because we won at Wembley and came back in a play-off final and won so we'd all had those feelings," said Heckingbottom of the 2016 experience.

"How often do you get the chance for an FA Cup quarter-final and then potentially the next step? You've got to embrace it and go for it.

"This way this one's fallen with an international break it's great. We will have probably up to a dozen lads away but we've got to try and win this game and then deal with the rest when we get back.

"If we are successful in this one there is an extra game, (with the Championship game at Huddersfield Town) probably in the last week of the season, but looking at it that is Saturday to Monday and a nine-day gap so I'm not too concerned, I'd rather win the game."

Midfielder James McAtee has recovered from the cramp which took him off against Sunderland. Daniel Jebbison will have to be assessed after a hefty tackle from Trai Hume at the Stadium of Light.