Tommy Doyle on how Sheffield United's old heads have reacted to back-to-back defeats

But getting out of the Championship is about more than just that.

What gives you most confidence about the Blades is the mental strength and experience within a dressing room full of players who have been there and done that.

And what shines through when Tommy Doyle sits quietly in his corner of the dressing room and listens to the old sages is that the defining moments of promotion-winning campaigns come in adversity – adversity like the 2022-23 team is facing now.

After consecutive defeats to Middlesbrough and Millwall last week, the Blades will need all of that experience to stop two consecutive losses becoming three and prevent a wobble turning into a full-blown wobbly against Slaven Bilic's promotion-chasing Watford on Saturday.

At 21 years of age and yet to hit 30 league starts – he hopes that will be this weekend – Doyle is not one of those players, however much he speaks like one.

But the midfielder on loan from Manchester City has already seen a few dressing rooms in his time – at his parent club, and on loan at Hamburg and Cardiff City before his stint in South Yorkshire – and appreciates his current surroundings .

"I just think there's a real togetherness," he explains. "Everybody speaks to everybody which some people would say is normal but sometimes you don't really see that. There's a lot of the older lads who've had unbelievable memories together and are close friends but they still treat people like me who've just come into the dressing room like one of them.

"You just feel very comfortable and how you feel every day will reflect on the pitch. I think that's why we have done so well."

Chris Basham, John Fleck, Billy Sharp and Jack O'Connell – who has not kicked a ball in anger for nearly three years but is still a presence at Shirecliffe continuing his recovery from cruciate knee ligament surgeries – won promotions from League One to the Championship as Blades; George Baldock, John Egan and Enda Stevens joined them on the second leg of the journey; Oliver Norwood could write a book on winning promotion to the Premier League having done it with Brighton and Hove Albion and Fulham as well as the Blades. Ciaran Clark has done it with Newcastle United.

Fortunately for first-timers like Doyle, they are generous in passing on those experiences.

"We've had these conversations, the games they've won in, the games they've lost in and the games they lost in that pushed them to win three or four on the spin," he says.

"The lads have a lot of experience and it's nice to hear them stories. I just want to have them times and get promotion. I want to win as many games as we can now and hopefully that will take care of it.

"When you're pushing for promotion it's not easy to lose two on the spin like we have done, sometimes it can affect you and you do need them lads who have been in that situation before to settle things down and reiterate to the other lads that it's not a problem, it's things we can fix. It's not going to define us.

"We can sit here all day and talk about things but we have to do it on the pitch. There's no use me saying these things if we're not going to go out and back it up.

"We have to do that and we have done for the majority of the season.

"I know the last two games haven't shown that because maybe we've slipped a little bit but we won't let that happen again, we'll try and put things right and give 110 per cent."

The defeat at Millwall was particularly frustrating because the Blades got back into the game during a sloppy first half through Doyle's second goal for the club, only to go behind again and equalise once more, through his fellow Manchester City loanee James McAtee in the 82nd minute. Losing 3-2 was a result which could break lesser groups.

Doyle explained what the dressing room was like afterwards.

"Everybody takes defeats in different ways," he says. "Some lads get angry, get things off their chest, which is needed.

"There's lads that sit there and don't really say anything. I'm one of them lads who will probably sit there and listen to what other lads have to say.

"It's horrible losing, it spoils your days until the next game, but we have to put that right for ourselves, for the club and for the fans. Hopefully we'll do that."

Whatever could go wrong at Bramall Lane on Saturday, it is hard to imagine a panic attack being to blame.