Sheffield United v Blackburn Rovers: Pride has been Blades' biggest prize this season

Promotion to the Premier League is the aim for the Blades, to make the most of having parachute payments.

Saturday's game at home to Blackburn Rovers will have no direct bearing on that, although it could go some way towards shaping the Championship play-offs that follow – not least by deciding if Blackburn will be in them, most likely as Thursday's hosts of the Bramall Lane club.

But the final home game of every season is a time for reflection and thank yous. Sheffield United do a lap of the home sections of Bramall Lane after every game there, but this one will carry extra meaning.

And although there will be disappointment on both sides of the advertising hoardings that Chris Wilder's team could not keep pace with what could be the first two teams in English league history to both reach 100 points in a season in the same division, there should be pride at what has been achieved.

Promotion is something of a poisoned chalice, but pride in their team is something no supporter will ever turn their nose up at. The final home game of last season ended in a 3-0 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur, the 28th loss of a miserable top-flight campaign.

“We have not got enough personality to put the opposition to bed," reflected Wilder on the chances his side missed that day. The team he rebuilt in the summer does have personality.

"Reflection is done after game 46 but I'll do it after 45, it's been an outstanding season," he says with pride.

"The only thing we can control is our attitude and approach to the game. There were some big challenges that went in (at Stoke, in another dead rubber for the Blades) and we never pulled out.

"The boys, as they have done all season through good times and bad, gave everything for the football club.

"I talked about what happened last season, what type of season it was, what a Sheffield United player looked like last season compared to this, and what a Sheffield United team looked like as well.

"The Premier League's unforgiving, it's brutal, it beats you up and spits you out but I like to think supporters understand where we've got that back to. Not always have we got the right result, not always have we played to our full capabilities but you rarely do that in a season.

"I know everyone will talk about that week (when they lost to Oxford, Millwall and Plymouth) being a disappointing week but maybe if we'd won two out of three, maybe that wouldn't have been enough. We'll never know. The energy in the group, the excitement at what they can achieve... there's no negativity at all.”

Bristol City, Coventry, Millwall, Blackburn and Middlesbrough are playing for the final two play-off places, with whoever finishes sixth hosting the Blades on Thursday ahead of a second leg the following Monday. Ben Brereton Diaz misses Saturday's game with a virus but is expected back for the play-offs.