Promotion prediction made as Paul Heckingbottom fires Sheffield United warning

Paul Heckingbottom predicts it will take at least five more matches before the promotion picture becomes clearer. Until then, he is urging everyone to remain calm and not focus too much on results.

With only six points separating third-placed Luton from 10th-placed Millwall, he is predicting weekly changes to the table until the Easter weekend. Sheffield United entertain Reading on Good Friday, before making the trip to Bristol City on the Monday for a 5:30pm kick-off.

Only when they board the bus at Ashton Gate to return home will they be able to look at the league table with any degree of certainty about who has a genuine shot at the end-of-season showpiece.

Before that Easter double header, United travel to Stoke on Saturday and then have two huge home games against fellow promotion chasers QPR and Bournemouth. In that period, Luton have Huddersfield and Nottingham Forest to play, while the Terriers also have a home match with QPR and a trip to Middlesbrough, who also face Bournemouth three days earlier.

With so many teams in the mix playing each other, it's impossible for every one to pick up maximum points, so with that in mind the Championship standings are likely to see plenty of movement before it starts to settle down. In the meantime, Heckingbottom is keen to remind his players and supporters that there could be some bumps along the way and it's important not to get carried away with a result, good or bad.

"With the amount of times teams in the top half, who all think they have got a chance, are going to be playing each other it's going to keep changing," he told Yorkshire Live. "I cannot re-emphasise this enough.

"You cannot get wrapped up in when you don't get maximum points or when you do, somebody else