Wilder and his brilliant Blades have been cut above.. they deserve a crack at Euro stardom

LIKE many people with the gifts of vision and hearing, I haven’t always warmed to Neil Warnock.

A manager who never missed the chance to turn a slight into a blood vendetta, practised killing referees with death-stares from 50 paces and had more excuses for losing matches than a class dunce had for not doing his homework.

But a colourful eccentric, who we miss in post-match interviews the same way we’ll miss Donald Trump when he’s finally dragged out of the White House in a straitjacket.

And this week Warnock inadvertently offered some perspective to those who believe the only reasons for resuming the Premier League are rampant greed and the coronation of “media darlings” Liverpool.

He reminded us that Sheffield United sit in an excellent position to make the European places, which would be a fitting testament to “the tactical genius” of Chris Wilder.

Since lockdown, there has been much raving about the renaissance of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s Manchester United. Some pundits have looked at their recent run of form and argued they are two or three signings away from challenging for the title.

What has hardly been mentioned is that Sheffield United are two points behind Solskjaer’s men with a game in hand. Win it and they leapfrog them into fifth place, two points off fourth-placed Chelsea, who have yet to visit Bramall Lane.

Meaning they have a decent chance of making the Champions League places, especially if Manchester

City fail to overturn their two-year European ban next month and a place opens up to the team who finish fifth. Wolves are in the mix too. With 27 points still to play for, they are five points off Chelsea, who they meet on the final day.

As third favourites to win the Europa League, you wouldn’t rule out

Nuno Espirito Santo (right) and his team qualifying for the Champions League through that route either. In this era of a supposed Big Six monopoly, what an incredible achievement that would be for either Wolves or Sheffield United to represent England in the world’s top club competition. Especially Wilder’s side, who many believed only gained automatic promotion last year after Leeds blew up in the home straight.

A team, who virtually every pundit outside South Yorkshire (including me) tipped to go straight back down to the Championship after a sobering football lesson.

Gaining a Champions League spot would be up there with Leicester City’s Premier League win as one of the greatest achievements of modern English football. And, like Leicester, it would be fully deserved because the Blades have been a revelation. Wilder is a breath of fresh air, grounded, modest, generous and ego-free. The way he has fearlessly set up the Blades to play 3-5-2 in the top flight and the way he instilled the belief they were the equal of every team they faced, meant the perception of them swiftly switched from an easy three points to the toughest of opponents.

The Mirror recently asked a fan of every Premier League club if they thought the season should be curtailed.

Darren Fletcher, a Bramall Lane regular for 45 years, answered: “We’re on the cusp of something pretty significant and it would be unfair on everyone connected with Sheffield United to be robbed of that.”

“Pretty significant” is a classic piece of Yorkshire understatement. Wilder could go from leading his hometown club into a League One game at Port Vale in April 2017 to possibly taking them to the Nou Camp in a Champions League group decider this autumn.

If football can safely resume behind closed doors, that’s a shot he thoroughly deserves.