With just three days to go before Sunday's 1pm showdown at Hillsborough Kevin Blackwell has been focusing on ensuring that all his players understand the significance of showing Blades fans that they will be straining every sinew to give them the performance and result they crave.

United have the chance to complete a league double having won 3-2 at the Lane in September, but the manager now has several faces in his squad who didn't feature in that game:

"Motivation should never be a problem, but our build-up is about getting a lot of the players who are unfamiliar with Steel City derbies to understand just what they mean to people in Sheffield - because they just will not have a clue.

"These games really matter and last season many Owls supporters saw their season as a success just because they beat us twice, even though we came within a whisker of promotion.

"That is why this is our biggest game of the season. We know the consequences that could ride on the result and our players will have been reminded what it will mean to families on both sides of the city divide who won't even want to walk out of their front door to face people if their favourites lose."

And Blackwell revealed that on at least one recent occasion he made a substitution decision at least partly based on trying to ensure that a key player would be available for the derby:

"Even though he had scored at Newcastle I brought Richard Cresswell off when he had only a slight hamstring niggle.

"I told him that we had a big game coming up and that I would need him. It is a massive fixture that we simply have to perform in and I need every players to be fighting for the cause."