Millers' Crossing

Rotherham’s relegation was confirmed in early April and it had looked a certainty for months beforehand: with several games left they had already set club records for the fewest points in a season and the most defeats.

- Phil Kyte

Some fans even identified the 4-0 capitulation away to Barnsley at the end of August as a sure sign of what was to come.

Back-to-back promotions starting in 2012-13 had taken the club by surprise. While New York Stadium is a lovely ground in which to watch Championship football, off the field the set-up remained resolutely in League Two. The scouting network, such as it was, was highly questionable – Gee Evans remained as chief scout well after his bother Steve had left as manager in October 2015 and the club struggled to adapt from Evans’ scattergun approach to a more targeted identification of players.

Criticism has also been made by a number of managers of the standard of the training facilities. The club’s current training ground is on land leased from Tata Steel, one of the main local employers. However, the club also own land elsewhere and it has never been satisfactorily explained why that could not be developed. Recently, there have been announcements that negotiations have gone well with Tata and that a “single structure” will be built on the land, in theory by the start of 2017-18. How it will improve matters remains to be seen.