'We need to handle pressure better': Sheffield United boss defiant after ceding promotion advantage to Leeds United
The Bramall Lane mood was despondent on Tuesday night, as despondent as it had been around Leeds United after they followed Sheffield United's best performance of the season by dropping - literally in the case of Illan Meslier - points against Swansea City and Luton Town.
Now, 11 days on from the Blades' 3-1 win over Coventry City, three days after Leeds' Kenilworth Road draw, the wheel has turned again.
The Whites are back on top of the Championship, Sheffield United dragged out of the automatic promotion places by consecutive defeats to Oxford United and Millwall. The emotions of this three-way title race can send you into orbit or rip you to shreds if you let it.
The job of managers Chris Wilder, Daniel Farke and Scott Parker is to ensure it does not do that to their players. Easier said than done.
Ao Tanaka played in the knockout stages of the last World Cup, a penalty shoot-out away from Japan's first quarter-final, yet Farke revealed his midfielder was in tears at the end of Leeds' Tuesday-night win at Middlesbrough.
One hundred miles south, goalkeeper Michael Cooper - the Blades' best player this season - was inches from an own goal to double Millwall's lead with a misplaced backpass .
"I’m cool," insisted Wilder. "I’ve been down the stretch before so I’ve had experience of it and had success coming through it. We try and put that to the players.
"They’ve got to enjoy it, they’ve got to stay calm, but they’re the ones in front of 25,000 people on a Tuesday night with five games to go (now) and a massive prize in front of them
"You can’t board them up, turn the TVs off and get rid of their phones."
Blades fans felt it too, in need of a lift their team's football could not provide. If you wanted to be polite, you could call the hosts' first-half passing patient, if you preferred to be more pernicious you would pick "ponderous", Wilder's word at Oxford. Penetrative it was not.
Millwall’s Josh Coburn hit them on the counter-attack, fittingly finishing a move started by Billy Mitchell's beautiful pass.
Helped by Jesurun Rak-Sakyi's introduction, there was more energy in the second half but more chances just meant more misses.
The Blades had 25 shots yet it never felt like a 25-shot performance, even with a first-half penalty bafflingly ignored when Jake Cooper tried to rip Anel Ahmedhodzic's shirt off, just like referee Sam Allison had warned him seconds earlier not to.
When Callum O'Hare shot over in the third added minute, a ripple of upturning seats went around the ground.
John Denver's version of Annie's Song, the club anthem played before and after every home game, can be uplifting when bawled over by thousands of Sheffielders but eerily melancholy drifting over empty seats.
There were plenty of them as the players toured the pitch after the 1-0 defeat, even if those that stayed made a point of clapping lustily.
So it was over to Wilder to do his bit. Farke had been all smiles, chuckles and "100 per cent certainty" post-Swansea and post-Luton, ending the latter press conference with a full-on lecture - "If you think you will be promoted easily with Leeds United, sorry you are at completely the wrong club, mate."
Like most post-match press conferences, it was an act. Normally jovial and accommodating with the media, Wilder's can occasionally be tense and tetchy if wounded by a defeat. They hurt him badly.
Mr Grumpy did not turn up to the press room but nor was it the sunshine show of Alex Neil, buzzing at MIllwall's win and the prospect of a crack at a fourth play-off success - look out Saturday's visitors Middlesbrough.
Wilder growled at Allison - "He wants to be the star of the show" - and roared defiantly at the naysayers and "the narrative that we're out of it".
Of course they are not.
After 41 games, the Blades, Burnley and Leeds have all won 85 points, it is just Wilder's team had two chalked off for past financial sins.
If they win their last five games, they win promotion. But it is the same for Leeds and Burnley.
Tuesday was just the warm-up, a chance to try out some material. The real show will be at Shirecliffe between now and Saturday's long trek to Plymouth Argyle.
"As a manager you’re always an actor," said Wilder. "You have to feel the mood and feel the tension - if there is (any) - and come off of the players. And there are times where you need to step on them.
"We’ll try and get that feel right but ultimately, the players have got to be able to handle those situations and that’s why the top players are the top players - they can handle the pressure. Ultimately those teams that find a way, and deal with it the best, they’re going to come out winning and we’ve got to find a way and deal with it better."
That is the challenge - the show is all part of the solution.