Chris Wilder could not contain the excitement in his voice. “It feels imminent,” said Sheffield United’s manager. “It’s getting pretty close.”

Wilder was referring to his club’s protracted takeover by American consortium, COH Sports. At long last that particular saga has reached a conclusion, with the two key investors, Steven Rosen and Helmy Eltoukhy, joining United’s board as co-chairmen after the buyout of Prince Abdullah bin Mosa’ad’s United World Group was confirmed on Monday.

As Wilder aims to reinforce his team’s position at the top of the Championship while retaining his best players, most notably the widely-coveted midfielder Gustavo Hamer, the new owners are arriving at an opportune moment. “I do think we need to strengthen in January,” said Wilder as he seeks to lead United to a third promotion in six years. But the manager is conscious that a team that began the season with a two-point deduction for defaulted transfer payments faces some potentially challenging festive fixtures, starting with Burnley’s visit on Boxing Day. Scott Parker’s side sit third, four points behind Wilder’s and one in arrears of second-place Leeds. “It’s a huge game for us,” said the former England midfielder, whose team are unbeaten in their past nine games. “But we’re on a very good run.”

How Wayne Rooney and Frank Lampard must wish they could say the same. The one time England teammates meet at Coventry where the recently installed Lampard is charged with improving on his team’s 17th position and Rooney aims to lift Plymouth off the bottom of the table.

Lampard was given a “clear picture” of the size of the task at Coventry by Saturday’s 4-1 defeat at Portsmouth. “For sure, we’ll be under pressure against Plymouth but that’s the beauty of football,” said Lampard. “It’s a good pressure because we have to stand up to it. So, yes, bring on Boxing Day when we have to show up.”

Rooney branded his injury-hit Plymouth side “naive” after they conceded a late equaliser in Saturday’s 3-3 draw with a Middlesbrough team managed by his old Manchester United and England teammate Michael Carrick. On those days when Hayden Hackney illuminates midfield and Emmanuel Latte Lath remembers his shooting boots, a sweet passing if wildly-inconsistent Middlesbrough look the second tier’s most sophisticated team. Carrick’s problem is that, at other times, his defence springs alarming leaks.

Boro’s Boxing Day fixture at home to a Sheffield Wednesday side harbouring serious playoff ambitions of their own offers Hackney and friends a chance to keep West Brom, Watford and Wednesday at bay by consolidating sixth place and perhaps even leapfrogging Blackburn into fifth. It is anyone’s guess whether they will take it.

Blackburn’s manager, John Eustace, is impressing at Ewood Park, but a litmus test awaits as Jobe Bellingham, Chris Rigg and the rest of Régis Le Bris’s precocious fourth-placed Sunderland side visit east Lancashire on Thursday. Unlike, Rooney, Lampard and Carrick, the cerebral Le Bris didn’t hit many heights during a short playing career as a defender with Rennes. Instead the 49-year-old gained a doctorate in sports physiology and biomechanics followed by a further diploma in the mental training of elite athletes before spending years as a youth coach at Lorient where, among other players who have gone on to better things, he mentored the Leeds goalkeeper Illan Meslier.

Indeed, Le Bris only took charge of Lorient’s first team in 2022, coincidentally the year he also started learning English. These days he speaks his second language with such fluency and nuance that he talks about “the lucidity” of Sunderland’s passing as they endeavour to close the five-point gap on Sheffield United. Despite the north-east’s new year public transport shutdown allied to an 8pm kick-off, a crowd of around 45,000 is expected at the Stadium of Light when Wilder’s side visit Wearside on New Year’s Day for a match that could exert a significant bearing on the race for automatic promotion.

Like Leeds, Sunderland are frequently described as a Premier League club in waiting, but Le Bris knows he could do with not merely fending off those elite rivals queuing up to poach Bellingham and Rigg but also finding a reliable goalscorer. A new striker is needed to ease the stress on the Zenit St Petersburg loanee Wilson Isidor who travels to Blackburn on Thursday seeking his first goal in eight games.

The Leeds manager, Daniel Farke, remains adamant that had his No 9, Patrick Bamford, not sustained a knee injury late last season his team would have been promoted then. The difference now is that a revamped starting XI featuring the Japan midfielder Ao Tanaka’s excellence have evolved to the point where a fit Bamford appears superglued to the substitutes’ bench. Yet if Le Bris, Carrick and co will be aware of his subtly-frustrated body language amid talk of an impending January loan exit, Leeds are unlikely to trade with a promotion rival.

Boxing Day sees Leeds visit Stoke in another impractical 8pm kick-off featuring a home team without a win in eight games and their increasingly beleaguered manager, Narcis Pelach, struggling to keep his job. The 36-year-old Spaniard is under considerable pressure in the Potteries and probably watched videos of Leeds’ 4-0 demolition of Oxford at Elland Road on Saturday through his fingers. As Craig Short, Oxford’s caretaker coach, reflected: “Leeds are the best team in the Championship by a long way. Their athleticism and physicality sets them apart.”

With the top-tier currently containing only five northern clubs, a levelling-up project seems necessary. The good news is that Sheffield United, Leeds, Burnley, Sunderland, Blackburn and Middlesbrough are jostling to make that a springtime reality.