The relegation season ... where it all went wrong for Rotherham United

Leam Richardson was speaking generally about football and specifically about Rotherham United soon after taking charge last December.

He believes the Millers had a culture all about respecting the badge during the long managerial reign of Paul Warne and lost it in the year Matt Taylor was in the hot-seat.

Now it's his mission to build it again.

The head coach will have to do it in League One next season after relegation from the Championship this term.

His introduction partway through a torrid campaign couldn't halt the slide yet most of the damage had been done before his arrival.

The drop had been coming for months and was finally confirmed with a limp display and another defeat, 1-0 against Plymouth Argyle, at AESSEAL New York Stadium last Friday.

After that game, he fronted up, shouldering full responsibility for his new club going down. That was brave PR. He knows, really, that it's not all on him.

Later, more reflectively, a man with decade and a half of productive experience as a boss, coach or number two, whose only other relegation came because of a points deduction, said: “I'll take half of it.”

Rotherham didn't know it at the time but they were in trouble, deep trouble, right from last summer.

Taylor wanted Championship-proven signings and made a host of them. The problem was, most of them were past 30 and had seen too much of the inside of treatment rooms.

Sean Morrison, Lee Peltier, Grant Hall, Shane Ferguson, Tyler Blackett (he was 29 then, 30 now), Sam Clucas and Daniel Ayala were gambles and only Morrison, Peltier and Clucas have partially paid off.

All of them have had injury issues while Hall, Ferguson, Blackett and the now-departed Ayala have averaged eight appearances each.

They have been joined on the sidelines, for varying degrees of time, by Jamie Lindsay, Andre Green, Cameron Humphreys, loanee Fred Onyedinma, Cohen Bramall and, lately, Peter Kioso and Jordan Hugill.

Other recruits like Cafu, Dexter Lembikisa and Arvin Appiah - the latter two both on loan - have been either not good enough or not bothered enough or both while record-signing striker Sam Nombe hasn't justified Rotherham paying the first seven-figure fee in their history.

“You come in and hope there's the quality there to instil certain things,” Richardson said. “But we've gone around the country since I've been in the building with 64 per cent availability of the playing squad.

“If Rotherham have 90-plus per cent availability it's still a tough challenge. If we're going around with 64 per cent and not being able to train and with different departments not functioning, it becomes an impossible job.”

That was a statement loaded with damning implications.

“I've tried to make us competitive, to stay above water, but of late ...” He didn't finish the sentence. “Coventry, Norwich and tonight,” he continued. “They've been our worst ones.”

The 2-0 scoreline in Sheffield Wednesday's favour in October's Hillsborough derby wasn't as bad as the recent 5-0s of the CBS Arena and Carrow Road but the sense of humiliation was worse.

Taylor had a second-tier survival on his CV from last season but would last for only three more matches.

Rotherham had slipped into bottom spot before the appointment of Richardson and were eight points adrift of safety by the time they finally turned to him. It took a month when, with more preparatory work prior to the previous boss's sacking, it could have been days.

The long search set the club back almost as much as the injuries did.

A ‘restructuring process’ involving the creation of a director-of-football role that was cited as the reason for the delay has had no discernible effect.

Richardson inherited a fractured operation and by January it was all over bar the maths.

It was a month that brought a transfer window in which it wasn't worth making permanent additions and a waterlogged Roundwood training base that wasn't fit for use - and has remained out of regular commission since.

Richardson had already identified too much disharmony and too little unity in too many areas.

“There's so many different agendas here,” the 44-year-old said. “We've got to bring it back to one agenda. We haven't had one agenda at the club since I came here.

“I spoke to the chairman after two or three weeks of being in the job and told him exactly my thoughts about where we were going to go, what I thought the season would look like.

“Nothing has surprised me. Nothing has surprised me tonight, nothing will surprise me in the last five games.”

His initial aim was to nurture what little team spirit there was, to limit the damage and to reach the close of the season with the club in a more encouraging state than when he'd started.

There was a brief upturn in performances but a lack of character in the squad meant it couldn't be sustained. Some players can still look themselves in the mirror, some who lack the emotional attachment that has made the Millers special in the past can't.

Richardson's praise for those who've continued to make themselves available is, in turn, grim, unspoken criticism for a few who haven't.

It doesn't take a degree in educated guessing to work out who they are.

Supporters haven't stood for it. Social media has bristled with insult and accusation and New York has become a mix of anger and empty seats.

‘Has the club lost its connection with the fans?’ That the question was even asked on an online forum provided the answer.Change is coming. Many players will leave, many will be recruited. A Richardson team next season will look and act much differently to the ones he has been fielding in this one.

“The side needs to represent what myself and the club are about," he said. “This hurts me so much right now because it doesn't represent me. Hopefully we get a hard-working, happy environment.

“It will be a side that's got really strong habits, a side who can run, can play and can fight at any given point.

“You’ve got to go to different places and you've got to be able to run. Our running stats this year are nowhere near where they should be.

“Now and again you've got to be able to fight. We've got to build a squad that can do all three.

“I like to think that in the last 15 years I've been a good coach. I don't think there are many people, at my age, in the country who've won as much as I have.

“The biggest positive - and there aren't many of them at the minute - is that we know about the problems. We know where we need to get stronger and we know the culture that we need to grow.”Ah, the ‘c’ word again. Richardson wants a return to former values.

In Warne's days, no man was allowed to stand on the club crest that adorned the floors of the dressing rooms at Roundwood and New York.

That practice drifted away in Taylor's time, a small part of a larger shift that has had ruinous consequences.

In a season of relegation, too many players have, literally and figuratively, walked all over the badge.