Leam Richardson on being the man for next season as Rotherham United suffer the drop

The head coach described the hurt as "tremendous" following the 1-0 defeat to Plymouth Argyle that sent his side down to League One and took the drop on his shoulders despite joining the club only in December.

When asked about undertaking a major rebuild for the 2024/25 campaign, he replied: "I've been doing this for 15 years and I've never shied away from a challenge.

"Unless someone thinks there's someone better, which I don't."

He said of this term, in which the Millers have won only four times: “That doesn’t represent me, but I am not hiding away from anything. I am at the front of it and I take the full blame.

“I also take responsibility for making Rotherham a better football club. The biggest positive is that we know the areas where we need to get better.”

The home team were passive in defeat which came via a first-half strike from Bali Mumba and there were boos after the interval and at full-time.

“It was a poor game,” Richardson said. “Plymouth deserved to win. I thought we would be a better version of ourselves. There’s a couple of players who can still hold their head up to a level.”

Only a victory this evening would have given the Millers a brief stay of execution and the loss left them 19 points shy of safety with only five matches left.

“It’s not one game, it’s not the Plymouth game. It’s been 41 games,” Richardson said.