Paul Heckingbottom takes one positive from Sheffield United’s loss against Millwall

Sheffield United manager Paul Heckingbottom believes yesterday’s defeat against Millwall will serve as a timely reminder that his side need to be on top of their game every match in their quest for promotion, speaking to The Star after their latest Championship clash.

The Blades were unbeaten in their previous nine league ties coming into this match against Gary Rowett’s men – and would have been full of confidence having secured a last-minute winner against fellow play-off hopefuls Blackburn Rovers in midweek.

Going down to ten men and seeing Wes Foderingham save a penalty against Rovers, it could even be argued that they may have felt invincible as they travelled down to the English capital.

This unbeaten run has summed up Heckingbottom’s time at the helm thus far, immediately improving the Blades’ fortunes after the dismissal of Slavisa Jokanovic and setting his side up in a formation they were far more comfortable with.

However, they came unstuck in London yesterday with Jake Cooper proving to be the difference between the two sides once again following the centre-back’s heroics at Bramall Lane back in October.

This result may have dumped United out of the play-offs for the time being – but the 44-year-old did take one key positive from it as he spoke to the Sheffield Star.

He said: “I still want to win these games [when United aren’t at their sparkling best]. That was the message there in the dressing room, the tone with the players was important.

“We need to use it as a reminder. If we look where we were and where we are now, everyone would have snapped your hands off and we understand what got us there.

“Today is a reminder that you have to be at it every game in this league. We play good teams who cause their own