The result ended their slim hopes of making the play-offs, although Hull’s win over Norwich would have denied them even if they had beaten United.

The outlook was certainly bright for Derby at half-time, with Sam Szmodics’ fifth-minute opener giving the hosts a foothold in the play-offs and the scorelines at Hull and Wrexham going their way.

However, that changed when a mistake by Joe Ward allowed Tom Cannon to equalise in the 62nd minute before a quality strike from Sydie Peck put paid to Derby’s hopes.

Despite the loss, Eustace said: “I’m sitting here with immense pride at what we’ve done this year.

“The players have been outstanding, irrespective of the result today. The effort of the group and the progression we’ve made this season has been excellent.

“Hopefully, it’s really exciting times to be part of the football club moving forward. I think this was the highest league attendance in the EFL today, so it just shows the size of the club and the fan base.

“Where we want to go is obviously to get into the Premier League with the backing over the next two or three seasons. That’s why I came and that’s what we want to do.

“It’s been a group effort to get to where we are now but there’s still a hell of a lot of hard work ahead, for sure, and it’s really important that we don’t go backwards now.”

Sheffield United manager Chris Wilder paid tribute to the job Eustace has done so far at Derby.

“I’ve given them credit all season for what John has done here,” he said.

“From last year, being in the position that they were to having a shot at the play-offs is testament to the work that himself and his coaching staff have done.

“That’s what we’re trying to get to. You have to give them an enormous amount of credit, they’ve set it up and we haven’t done enough and done it consistently. This league is about experience, personality and characters and that’s the reason they’ve got the amount of points they’ve got.

“I think it’s a reasonable amount of points we’ve got from the challenges we’ve had, and I’ll go again on record as saying that this has been by far and away the biggest challenge that I’ve ever had and I’ve had some huge challenges.

“I’m really disappointed we haven’t given the supporters something to play for at the end of the season but we haven’t been good enough on certain aspects of the game. But the good thing about it, for me, is that I know what we haven’t been good at and we know what we need to do.”