So here’s the build-up for “beautiful downtown” Bramall Lane this Saturday and the questions being asked.
Can they take the heat? Will they withstand the pressure? How will they react to criticism?
No, not the Sheffield United team. I’m talking about the crowd. And what a bizarre backdrop that is to a game which could carry the home team back to the top of the table.
It’s not so much about how 11 people perform as 17,000. If anyone’s on trial for the visit of MK Dons then it’s the fans and not the players.
Fair to say that an outsider looking in might be a little bemused at this point. The Blades are second in the table and unbeaten in six games, winning five. Normally that would spell a fearsome atmosphere for the opposition. Yet it seems United players are in greater danger of being intimidated.
Two points of balance before we go on. The first is that Danny Wilson’s team has enough experience, ability and backbone - or should have - to assert their professionalism. No amount of pessimism in the crowd should be taken as an excuse.
Secondly, it’s reasonable to suggest that United have hardly set the place alight this season. They have won fewer than half their home games, lost just as many and scored just 27 goals in the 17 league encounters at the Lane where Leyton Orient’s forcing of a 0-0 draw nine days ago brought the crowd issue to a head.
But it’s clear that if Wilson’s men must be looking to improve their home form for the run-in then the fans are facing a key challenge of their own.
Right now they are playing into opponents’ hands. MK need a lift after their slide from the promotion frame and you can bet their manager, Karl Robinson, will take his cue from the crowd when he makes his team talk. Words to the effect of “keep it tight and then their supporters will turn on them.”
For whatever reason, United’s crowd as a whole - perhaps unfairly if we are talking a vociferous minority - has developed a reputation for being among the moodiest, grumpiest and short-tempered in football.
Frustration at lingering in the third tier is the most obvious and logical explanation. But the players are fighting their way out of it and they need their fans - ALL of them - to do the same.
