Sheffield United v Luton Town: Chris Wilder keeping Blades grounded with old-school bangers and blue Wednesday

Looking ahead to Saturday's Championship visit of Luton Town, manager Chris Wilder's press conference was peppered with gruff-voiced references to Liverpool's "supersub" of the late 1970s and early 1980s David Fairclough, to George Graham's late 1980s/early 90s Arsenal, and Manchester United's 1999 centre-forward stable.

Wilder would not still be working today, let alone at the top end of the Championship, if he was in a timewarp of muddy pitches, nutcracker shorts and caveman football.

But equally today's trendsetters are mugs if they ignore football's foundations. Pep Guardiola enjoys a Herbert Chapman-style WM formation and Mikel Arteta seems to relish a "1-0 to the Arsenal".

Even the shirts are resolutely retro, not least Sheffield United’s 1990s homage.

"A lot's talked about in-possession, playing in between the lines, pockets and transitions and all this new vocabulary I've had to learn over the last three or four seasons but the game doesn't change," argues Wilder, who will be up against a Luton side unafraid to play a 21st Century remix of 80s-style route one when the situation demands.

"It's a competitive game, an emotional game, a physical game and when somebody does put in a goal-saving block or a save and you see it getting celebrated... we study the top sides from top to bottom and you look at what Arsenal are producing at the moment – their mentality, their togetherness, their attitude towards games."

So this week Wilder has been showing his players videos of them playing some of the old-school classics he likes.

"Big headers, big tackles, big blocks, big recovery runs, especially at our place it lifts our crowd, I've always said it," he points out. "A chase down the side and a last-ditch tackle sometimes gets a little bit more of a roar than a Cruyff (turn (another one for the kids)) or a pass with the outside of the boot.

"We want to be good at those sort of things, as well as possession, of course.

"It's reminders every now and again about what we're like as a football club and what we need to produce day in day out, week in, week out to be successful."

In this touchy-feely era, Wilder was not afraid to paint the air blue during Wednesday's 1-0 win over Swansea City with the sort of language you can find bleeped out of fly-on-the-wall documentaries following Dave Bassett or Neil Warnock.

"The players know I'm an incredibly honest manager in terms of my approach and my talk to them but I'm a massive supporter of football players, of my own players when they do the business for us and a massive supporter of the football club," he stresses.

"There's always a balance and you have to get that right from a leadership and messages point of view.

"Sometimes it's a little bit colourful as it was at half-time (on Wednesday). We had to change our approach and our attitude at half-time and sometimes a few words now and again resets everything.

"We needed it then but after it was 'Well done, great that you took on board the messages we gave to you about how you should approach it.’

"It's through experience I've got that, the amount of games I've managed and the amount of games we've all managed and coached."

And it works. Look at the Championship table.