Sheffield United in numbers: the task facing incoming manager Chris Wilder

Having come so close under Wilder in May's Championship play-off final, promotion back to the Premier League is the Blades' over-riding priority but their gamble on Ruben Selles to deliver it spectacularly backfired.

Here, in numbers, is the task from this point onwards:

0 – points won in Ruben Selles' five league games as manger; they also went out of the League Cup

1 – goal scored in the league this season, the lowest in the Championship

12 – conceded, the joint worst with Sheffield Wednesday and Queens Park Rangers

41 – Championship games left to play in 2025-26

123 – points available

45% – of the broadcast revenue handed to each Premier League club that Sheffield United will receive in their second and last parachute payment, an estimated £40m

£8m – estimated solidarity payment the Blades will receive instead if they are still in next season's Championship

5 – promotions won by Wilder as a manager – 1 from the Championship (in 2019)

12 – new senior players signed since Wilder's sacking – plus, controversially, a couple of artificial intelligence-scouted development players

6 – members of the starting XI in May's Championship play-off final no longer at Bramall Lane

13 – points headstart to leaders Middlesbrough; 12 to second-placed Stoke City

9 – point gap to the play-off places

2 – average number of points Sheffield United won under Wilder last season (they started on -2 because of past financial issues)

82 – points the Blades will finish on if he can repeat that ratio this season

1 – the number of teams to have won automatic promotion from the Championship with 82 points (Hull City in 2012-13) since the turn of the millennium

73.5 – average number of points needed to reach the Championship play-offs this century

45.5 – average number of points for the team in the final relegation spot in the same period.