On-loan Manchester City midfielder Tommy Doyle looking to make more family history - starting with some Sheffield United goals

Having taken their jibes about not being able to match their achievements, the on-loan Sheffield United midfielder is determined to make some of his own.

Leg-pulling apart, Mike Doyle and Glyn Pardoe – Manchester City medal-winners in the 1960s and 70s when those phrases could not be taken for granted – have been huge influences on their 20-year-old grandson and remain so through Mike's son Scott.

No doubt their pearls of wisdom will flicker through Tommy's head as he faces another famous English footballing names, Blackpool, on Saturday.

One only need look at the current flavour of the month at Eastlands, Leeds-born Erling Haaland, to know having someone in the family who have been through what you have can be quite handy to a footballer.

Whether Doyle will ever be a City regular like his grandfathers, or even an England international like Mike, remains to be seen, but it does not feel like a poor temperament will stop him.

"When I was younger I used to see Mike a lot through my dad and I had a very close relationship with Glyn," says Doyle, on a season-long loan at Bramall Lane. "He went to all my games and saw my debut with City. He travelled everywhere and looked after me a lot when I was young.

"He just used to say, 'Play your game.' He could calm me down when I was angry and would keep me level-headed and on the ground, always giving me advice I needed."

Not that Glyn and Mike always took it easy on the youngster.

"They used to give me some stick on things they'd won and I hadn't," recalls Doyle. "If I'd won a (under-)21s medal they'd tell me it's not the real thing and show me the medals they'd won.

"I'm massively proud of what they did but I think it's about me now trying to build on the family history and trying to create my own.

"If I do anything near what they've done I'll be pretty happy.

"My dad didn't play the game like my granddads did (although he was also in City's youth system) but he's grown up in that environment so I'm incredibly lucky to have people like that.

"My granddads aren't here any more but my dad is very similar to Mike."

Not that you have to be related to Doyle for him to learn from you.

"I've been very fortunate with David Silva, (Sergio) Aguero, Kevin de Bruyne and the English lads like Kyle Walker, John Stones and (Raheem) Sterling that will always help you," he says of his parent club.

"It is possible (for young players to succeed) at that club, you see it with Phil (Foden), there's just different routes to it.

"Even here there's lads that have played hundreds and hundreds of games. There's always people you can learn off."

To make his mark on the game as a midfielder Doyle will need medals, goals or both. He scored once in what he sees as a badly thought-through loan at Hamburg, and twice at Cardiff City last season but is yet to break his duck for the Blades.

"I've never been a natural goalscorer but I feel like I should score a lot more and it frustrates me because I do it in training all the time," he says. “For whatever reason I don't find myself in those positions on a weekend.

"I maybe need to arrive at a better time or shoot a lot more from distance. There's loads of things I want to improve on."

You can imagine there will be a heck of a party upstairs when Doyle appears on a United scoresheet.