If Sheffield United are to stay in next season's Premier League, they are going to have to do so on the cheap.

At least that is how it it looks ahead of the transfer window opening next month.

Prince Abdullah bin Musa'ad still aims to sell the club, with rumoured American interest. But a sale to Henry Mauriss collapsing before he was jailed for fraud, and Dozy Mmobuosi’s being kicked into the long grass does not inspire confidence.

Manager Paul Heckingbottom was clear from the outset: he wanted a budget as soon as the season ended. If the Blades cannot compete financially, he did not want to shorten their transfer window by sitting on his hands waiting for buyers.

LOANEES: James McAtee and Tommy Doyle are on loan at Sheffield United from Manchester City but in the Premier League they can only borrow one player from any given club

Now it seems he has his answer, but a bleak one.

According to reports he will get around 15 per cent of the extra revenue expected from jumping on domestic football's most lucrative gravy train – just over £20m, or an Oli McBurnie at 2019 prices.

Stretching parachute payments to maintain their squad in the Championship has been tough and debts piled. Between clearing them and pay rises for promotion-winners, a lot of the estimated extra £135m will be swallowed immediately.

So Heckingbottom may have to turn a Championship squad into a Premier League one on free transfers and loans if no one rides to the rescue before 11pm on September 1.

CLARITY: Sheffield United manager Paul Heckingbottom had been asking for a budget and now appears to know where he stands

The Premier League is not all about money, as Brighton and Hove Albion and Brentford in one respect, and Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur showed this season. But it helps.

The Blades squad has not evolved anywhere near as much as it ought to have since dropping out of the top-flight two years ago, with only two paid-for signings in reserve goalkeeper Adam Davies and centre-back Anel Ahmedhodzic. Promotion-winners George Baldock, John Egan, Oliver Norwood, Sander Berge and McBurnie were also core members of the 2019-20 team which finished ninth in the top flight, and Enda Stevens, Chris Basham, John Fleck and Billy Sharp still have supporting roles.

Judging transfer fees is difficult when the most popular one is "undisclosed" and inflation rampant, but Transfermarkt is a good guide.

It reckons the 15 teams promoted since 2018 spent an average £56.42m on transfer fees alone. Narrow it to the eight not immediately relegated and it is £79.4m.

RECORD SIGNING: Sheffield United spent £20m on Oli McBurnie when they were last promoted but the purse strings have tightened in the last two years

Only two are thought to have had a net transfer spend below £20m and Watford (2021) and Norwich City (2019) managed just 44 points combined. It says Brentford's £31m is the least a newly-promoted club stayed up by spending.

Nottingham Forest last year, Leeds United in 2020 and Aston Villa the year before spent over £100m to stay up – narrowly in two cases.

Trends are there to be bucked, and in James McAtee and Tommy Doyle, Heckingbottom made two good loans from Manchester City last summer on the back of then-Wolverhampton Wanderers player Morgan Gibbs-White in 2021.

If no one appears in time to affect deadline day, there is always the mid-season window.

But however you dress it up, 2023-24 does not look like being a season for the faint-hearted.

Sheffield United's reported transfer budget does not bode well if recent Premier League history is any guide