A Sheffield United situation that could have been worse now leads to future positivity

It’s a simple football equation that’s not so simple to perform. The whole has to be greater than the sum of its parts. And after effectively swapping crippling transfer embargoes for a minimal points penalty, that has to be Sheffield United’s main focus this summer.

I understand United were at risk of being embargoed for the next TWO windows had they not embraced next season’s docking of two points, with a further two suspended. Had EFL pressure prevailed to drive the Blades out of both the close-season and mid-winter windows, all their plans would have been paralysed.

So I’m gauging the punishment as a good result well negotiated, and a subject of some relief, considering United won promotion to the Premier League with players they paid late for.

As for the importance of trading values, even the elite are not entirely immune from this. We can see examples, Manchester United for instance, of where the whole is less than the sum of the parts. But for the rest of the game, and increasingly so with the much needed onset of tighter financial controls, the old formula very much applies. And at Bramall Lane especially so.

Certainly it’s been the bedrock of every successful Blades side I’ve seen - from the eras of Dave Bassett and Neil Warnock through to the second coming of Chris Wilder.

You can see it in play already before a single piece is laid in the giant jigsaw of this summer’s transfer puzzle. It’s taking shape in the form of a new recruitment team, including former player and dyed-in-the-wool Blade Jamie Hoyland, that won’t target players on ability alone, far from it. Besides, if quality was the main criteria the club wouldn’t be able to afford it. Which is where the big picture equation kicks in.

Sometimes managers preach about having “good characters” and “good people” without fully meaning it. A well known and very successful boss once confided he’d happily “sign Jack the Ripper if he could play football.” It was partly tongue in cheek and also a nod to the “characters” of the game in that former era. Footballers are not choirboys, nor should we expect them to be. And even to this day, we see examples of where expediency, and money, can get in the way of basic morals.

But in general terms you need players who, however talented, are prepared to put team ahead of self. And a few (the more leaders the better) who are willing to police that within their own dressing room. That was unmistakably at the heart of Wilder’s last successful spell at Bramall Lane where ninth place in the Premier League was an over-achievement only made possible by a powerful ethos of togetherness.

The group responsible is finally breaking up, which is the natural order of things, but Wilder is clearly determined to recreate something similar. You can see that already in an assortment he has managed to pull together into a fighting unit after a series of embarrassing defeats.

If you are talking valuations, United should not be taking points off Bournemouth, Fulham and Chelsea. Or almost anyone in the Premier League. Project that forward, and with the right recruitment alongside some genuine youthful quality within their own ranks, the future can be quite exciting. Certainly you detect that in these words from Wilder himself: “I’m in a really good place.”