Sheffield United: How the players helped plot FA Cup victory over Millwall

Speaking before the visit to south London, defender John Egan confirmed United’s squad had found the Mitre product used by the game’s governing body much lighter than the Puma version adopted by the Championship; comparing it to a “beach ball”.

United spent the week building up to their outing at The Den, which they won 2-0, training with the Mitre model and Heckingbottom told The Star: “Very often, it’s goalkeepers who get to notice the differences between balls faster than anyone else, because they spot the flight of it and how it moves through the air. The same goes for technicians who take free-kicks and set-pieces, they are really quick across things like this too as you can probably understand. So we speak to them and see what their thoughts about it are. You’d expect us to do that as they are the ones who are going to be out there using it.”

Despite the difference between the Mitre and Puma balls, Heckingbottom insisted both his squad and the one selected by his opposite number Gary Rowett quickly grasped the changes necessary to perform correctly.

“Every make of ball is a little bit different,” he said. “You get a delivery of them at the start of the week and then, what happens is, most people work with them all the way through before switching back. It’s no problem.”