Sheffield United v Derby County Ahead of Saturday's 12.30pm kick-off at home to Derby County, Chris Wilder is looking for stability.
In the long-term view he is taking, that could be very good news for Femi Seriki, but perhaps not immediately against the Rams.
Missing out on an immediate bounceback to the Premier League courtesy of a late play-off winner, the short-lived replacement of Wilder with Ruben Selles, then losing their parachute payment has meant three consecutive summers of churn at Bramall Lane. It is something Wilder wants to end.
That means tying key players down to longer contracts, which the Blades are working on.
"It's a bit of negotiation to be done, but my relationship with the players, their relationship with the football club, gives me great enthusiasm that they'll re-sign," says Wilder of the likes of Seriki, Hamza Choudhury, Jaïro Riedewald, Patrick Bamford, Jordan Ayew and Joe Rothwell, whose contracts expire in June.
"The owners and Steve (Bettis, the chief executive) know how important it is that we keep hold of our best players, but we have to be sensible with the new contracts.
"Usually the new contracts involve an uplift, and usually there's a little bit of difference of opinion of where that uplift sits.
"Hopefully we can be aggressive in our approach and tie these boys down for me to put a team together that shows consistency and gets us into a place where we all want to be."
That Ayew, Bamford, Riedewald and Rothwell are in their 30s and Choudhury 29 is no concern.
"I've name-checked them before, Danny Welbeck, Jordan Henderson, Adam Lallana, James Milner, all those guys," says Wilder. "Jordan Ayew, he ain't written off at 34.
"You need those experienced boys as well, whether it's a manager or whether it's the players as long as the work ethic is good, the desire and the commitment is still there, and they've got a glint in their eye that wants to win – and Jordan has, I certainly have.
"We can't always have transfer windows in the summer that revolves about a load of players going out and a load of players coming in.
"There's a value in players that are in a winning team – and hopefully we’ll be a winning team – and there's a value in players playing 100, 150, 200 league games. We haven't had enough of those players.
"We haven't got anybody that's been here two, three, four years underpinning a lot of the work that we're putting in – players that have produced and are here for a long time and know what this club's all about."
Roght-back Seriki might be seen as part of the future and available after injury on Saturday, but it does not mean he will be straight back into the XI.
"We've missed the likes of Harrison (Burrows), Ryan (One) and (Tahith) Chong," says Wilder.
"I think you've seen their impact in the upturn in our performances the ability what the boys have given us off the bench (since returning from injury).
"It's really difficult now for them to go straight back in. Back in the day they would play two or three reserve games and get the minutes in. It's a little bit more complicated now.
"Chong had his games in the international break, which replicated those reserve games. Ryan came on the pitch against Lincoln, was really good and on Saturday was really good, took us up the pitch.
"Harrison I thought was outstanding on Saturday and he's been involved with the group.
"So to get Femi back gives us a really good option in that (right-back) position."