Sheffield United v Nottingham Forest: Morgan Gibbs-White revelling in Premier League promotion race

The guesses as to what exactly winning at Wembley is worth vary but they always stretch into hundreds of millions of pounds.

So by extension, today’s semi-final first leg between Sheffield United and Nottingham Forest is pretty important too, and Tuesday’s second leg even more so. Last Saturday’s game against Fulham to reach this stage was huge as well.

That day, as so often as the business end of the season has approached, Morgan Gibbs-White turned on the style, scoring his second goal in four games, and making a second too. Those numbers are only the half of it.

The bigger the games have got, the better the man who won the Under-17 World Cup under Steve Cooper, now Forest’s manager. Billy Sharp’s injury heaped more pressure still on the 22-year-old playmaker and it has showed, but only in a good way.

Had Gibbs-White put a pound in a jar every time he said he was looking forward to today, the Blades would be halfway to raising enough money to make his loan from Wolverhampton Wanderers permanent.

Does he even feel pressure?

“No,” he insists. “There’s a lot on the line but it’s another game, another battle to win.

“I’ve always been one to just want to play – whether it’s at the park with my boys or on one the biggest of stages, I’ve always wanted to play.

“I’m never afraid of stepping out onto the field, even on big occasions like this. If anything I’m more up for these games because there is a lot on the line.”

Where defenders perhaps need a sense of danger, free attacking spirits like Gibbs-White probably have to shut it out.

“I can keep it simple when I need to,” he stresses, “but I’m the sort of player who likes to create chances and take risks. Without taking those risks it’s harder to create chances.

“I want to work for the team and the manager but I also want to work for the fans and more importantly for myself.

“I have a career, I have a goal and I want to complete those things. Right now the goal is to get Sheffield United back to the Premier League.”

For the faint-hearted, packed stands can add to the foreboding. Many a player or manager at a big club has complained about suffocating expectation or history, but the best thrive off it.

In fairness, it must be difficult for Blades players not to feed off the mood at Bramall Lane at the moment, so positive towards a team who, like Forest, gave the rest of the Championship an early-season head-start before changing manager. Last week the fans stayed with them when Fulham started better and roared them on as when they scored, pushing them to quickly turn 1-0 into 3-0, then 4-0.

“I feel like that’s the best crowd I’ve played in front of,” says Gibbs-White, who showed his words about loving the club were more than just that by resisting Wolves’s suggestion to cut his season-long loan short in January.

“I believe they’ll be even louder and better than they were then.

“Without the Blades fans, I don’t think we’d be in the situation we are.

“It feels like a family here, just the support you get, it’s unbelievable. When you walk out at Bramall Lane the goosebumps, the feeling, you can’t describe it.”

Much is made of the experience within the Blades dressing room but the way Gibbs-White and his 22-year-old strike partner Iliman Ndiaye – who Gibbs-White says he “clicked” with immediately – has been the story of their run-in.

“I was an admirer of Morgan when he first got in the team at Wolves and they got promoted,” says manager Paul Heckingbottom. “He’s someone I’ve always seen from a distance and he appeared to have that big-game mentality.

“I trust him in big games, I expect him to deliver.

“Iliman’s just got a hunger to give his best every day and when he does that he’s going to make the best of himself. He’d handle the ball the same way down at the local five-a-side centre as he will in front of a full house.”

Winning games, scoring and making goals alongside a friend, carrying off the top prize at the Blades’ player of the season awards last weekend – life is pretty good for Gibbs-White.

“I don’t think you can get better than this in the Championship,” he smiles. “It’s nice coming first and second and going up but I feel like there’s any better feeling than going up in the play-offs, the whole process of it – two legs in the semi-final, then getting to play in probably the best stadium in the world.

“I haven’t played on the bigger stages yet but this will probably be the biggest moment of my career.”

Bigger than winning a junior World Cup with England?

“I’ll have to see on May 29.”

Already he is counting the days.