Sheffield United stance on player sales revealed as Paul Heckingbottom given clear instruction

Paul Heckingbottom is under no pressure to sell players in the summer and has been told the club's hierarchy 'want to go again' after just missing out on promotion. His star players could well attract interest following a strong finish to the campaign but players will only be sold if an offer comes in that is 'in excess of our valuation'.

Only one player of note departed Sheffield United upon relegation last season, with goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale sold to Arsenal for a fee expected to reach £30m. And Bettis has told Heckingbottom that the message from above remains the same.

Parachute payments have afforded the club the luxury of keeping the bulk of the squad together for a further year and the hope is they can go better than last season, with defeat to Nottingham Forest in the play-off semi-final ending their campaign one step from Wembley.

Speaking about the club's financial picture for next season, Bettis admitted no players will be sold on the cheap and they will only entertain offers that are too good to turn down. He said: "When you buy a player 99 times out of 100 you don't pay for him in one go. You pay for a player over a two to three-year period.

"Everyone knows we paid £120m, £130m in the Premier League on players but all of that wasn't paid immediately, so there's still payments for some of those players that need to be made. The reality is, that's what the parachute payments are for.

"The club at the moment is operating at a profit but if you then start taking those sums into account it's a negative cashflow. That's what the parachute payments are there for because they help to deal with that.

"So there's not a pressure for Paul to sell and there wasn't last season. The owner was very clear: keep the core