Sheffield United must give Paul Heckingbottom a fighting chance after what he has done for them - Stuart Rayner

Next week marks the fifth anniversary of Heckingbottom's sacking at Leeds United.

Without a glamorous playing career, big managerial jobs are hard to get, and when your first does not go to plan, there is not always a second. Opportunities are scarcer when your surname is not Lampard.

Leeds were a basket-case of a club in 2018, giving Heckingbottom just 16 games to prove his worth before firing the trigger as they did so often in their wilderness years. In fairness to them and with respect to him, it proved the right choice, replacing Heckingbottom with Marcelo Bielsa and transforming their fortunes.

"Right club, wrong time," Heckingbottom reflects.

Even after a strong start, being sacked by Hibernian – another club to push managerial "churn" to its limits in recent years – nine months into his next job did little to reinvigorate a reputation which got an early sheen as Barnsley manager.

Heckingbottom found himself being too fussy, he feels, about his next job until he ended up having a word with himself and taking a post as Sheffield United's under-23s coach at the second time of asking.

Now he will finally get his chance as what we laughingly call a "permanent" Premier League manager. As things stand, it is not looking like much of a chance, though.

Heckingbottom deserves a good crack at top-flight football. When he took over as caretaker manager at Bramall Lane in 2020, it was just to mind the sinking ship with relegation a certainty. That summer, the hierarchy looked elsewhere, to Slavisa Jokanovic, only turning back to Heckingbottom in November when the Serbian was sacked.

They talked their man up of course but it felt like Heckingbottom’s main attraction was as a cheap option. It is a path they have almost worn out since, allowing him only two paid-for signings in 18 months.

That is what made the Blades’ promotion last month so impressive, and an ignorance of it is has denied him wider recognition.

Michael Duff has down wonders at Barnsley in less than a year, Neil Warnock's short-term rescue act at Huddersfield Town was incredible, but Heckingbottom deserves to be mentioned in the same breath.

In a season where Southampton sacked three managers, Leeds and Chelsea two, and Leicester City, Everton, Bournemouth, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Crystal Palace, Tottenham Hotspur and Aston Villa all helped make the Premier League the least secure in the major European leagues for managers, keeping hold of a good one is vital.

After six years of chasing him, Wolves got one during the World Cup in Julen Lopetegui but now the jungle drums suggest he might walk out because he does not feel he will have a budget he can work with this summer as financial fair play reality finally dawns over Molineux.

There are wider issues at play with Lopetegui, who apparently feels he was sold a pup last year.

Heckingbottom knows what he is up against but depressing as it is to type, asking him to keep the Blades in the Premier League with a £20m warchest, as is being reported, is asking an awful lot. The 18 months of under-investment means his is an ageing, not an emerging side, eerily familiar of that which reached ninth in the top flight three years ago, then bombed the next year.

Sheffield United are hoping to be taken over this summer, but have been hoping that for some time. Whether it comes from sponsors or the back of Prince Abdullah bin Musa'ad’s sofa, money must be found to give them a fighting chance.

Heckingbottom has never moaned in public about the meagre hand he has been dealt, insisting as long as he knows what he is working with, he will get his head down and try to make the most of it.

You do not have to look far down the list of the club’s previous managers to find some who would not have been so gracious.

But nor is he a mug. The season he finished off was a 23-pointer. A similar or worse campaign would tar him, no matter the mitigation. If he did not lose patience, it is hard to see the club not feeling it had to make a change just out of desperation.

Team spirit or not, Heckingbottom’s best players might find good offers hard to resist if there is no optimism to hang around for.

There is time to avoid that.

As Heckingbottom is not one to complain it falls to others to.

"I hope Paul gets the support he needs and deserves," said Warnock after Huddersfield beat his already-promoted boyhood club to keep their place in the Championship.

Without the keys to Bramall Lane changing hands soon, it will be tough, but somehow the Blades have to beg and borrow the funds to give him a fighting chance. Warnock is right, after the job he has done for the prince and his club, it is the least he deserves.