21st place hurts but I guarantee that we won’t stay there ... Rotherham United boss Steve Evans writes for the Advertiser

Fair play to Birmingham City, they were just as good as I expected when they came to AESSEAL New York Stadium last Saturday and won 2-0.

They will do a lot more damage than that to many teams over the course of the season.

No, our benchmark isn't them, it's the other sides in the division, and we’re good enough to take them all on.

We threw away points against Bristol Rovers by not taking chances and we did the same against Burton Albion.

Both matches should have been wins for us and ended in draws and the loss of four points in those two games has cost us in the early stages of the campaign.

Those four points would have put us on the edge of the play-offs.

Being in 21st place hurts, but I guarantee that we won't stay there. It's a false position. You only have to look at our attacking stats to know we'll climb the table.

We have two away games coming up. We need to go to Shrewsbury Town on Saturday and Cambridge United next Tuesday, come back with four or six points and say: ‘Right, we're back to home action, let's see where we can go.’

We have had a tough run of fixtures in the opening weeks of the season. That's not always taken into consideration.

What also isn't taken into consideration enough is that we're a new group. We have players and staff still finding their way.

As a manager, you have nightmares if you're losing games, not making chances and not getting in the final third. That isn't the case with us.

Heading into the Birmingham match, we were League One's number-one team for attempts on goal, the number-one team for attempts on target and the number-one team for entries into the opposing penalty box.

Despite that, we're one of the lowest scorers. That tells you that there's an area of the team where we need to see a substantial improvement.

Sometimes sides go through phases where they just don't get that little break in front of goal. That seems to be what's happening to us.

There have been some bad misses in there, there has also been some good opposition defending in there.

I've had teams do this before – probably not to this degree – and we've found a way to turn it around.

£15m man Jay Stansfield got the headlines on Saturday with his goal, but Birmingham didn't come just with him.

They've signed foreign players who've cost a lot of money, they've brought in Alfie May who's cost a lot of money and they've paid out for a quality goalkeeper in Bailey Peacock-Farrell whom I gave a debut to at Leeds United.

I have absolutely no complaints about the resources we have here.

The financial support I received from chairman Tony Stewart over the summer couldn't be faulted. I offer no excuses on that front!

We've had good resources to build a good squad in League One and we've done that.

Like I say, the stats back that up. Stats count for nothing in terms of the end result but they give you a good indicator of how good teams are.

Sides not creating chances have deep problems. We have surface problems that we need to fix but we haven't got deep ones.

We will work hard all this week at the training ground in preparation for Shrewsbury and Cambridge.

What a time it would be to end that winless away record stretching back to November 2022 that I inherited when I came back here in April.

We need to give the same type of performances we'd been producing before Birmingham's visit - because some of our play has been very good.

Only one thing needs adding: an end product.

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VERY soon, we'll have a lethal, match-sharp League One striker in our ranks.

Jonson Clarke-Harris is taking a while to get up to full speed after injury cost him a large part of our pre-season programme but he's nearly there.

A couple of weeks ago, I said he was at around 75/80 per cent of his true capacity. Now I reckon he's up to 90.

Our summer signing didn't have his best day versus Birmingham, but ran his heart out against Burton in the previous match and led the line magnificently.

He worked hard off the ball for the team, he got a goal and was unlucky not to get a second and third.

He's a better captain than many people might think because he's an infectious, positive character, a positive character. He's commanding in the dressing room and at the same time he can be conciliatory.

A number of the other boys were worthy candidates for the armband. We wanted someone who leads in every department and Jonno gives us that.

He has put in so much effort to get his sharpness up to where it is and we're delighted with him. The free midweeks we've had have helped because we've been able to get some proper training into him.

Jonno is a double winner of League One's Golden Boot. Imagine what he's going to do in a Millers shirt when he hits 100 per cent …

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ALL you can do is tell them the truth.

I'm talking about players who aren't in the matchday squad and are desperate to get themselves in there.

Our summer recruitment has been strong but we can include only 18 names on the team sheet so some quality performers are having to watch matches from the stands.

Zak Jules, Shaun McWilliams, Cohen Bramall, Jack Holmes and Esapa Osong are among those who have found themselves in that situation.

You just have to be honest with the boys. You have to talk to them, you have to explain why they're not in the team. Usually it's because someone else is in a really good period of form and is in front of them.

You have to reassure them that you pick the squad with the highest level of integrity.

With people coming back from injuries, picking our bench is getting tougher by the week. It will be even tougher when Liam Kelly recovers from his groin strain and tougher still when Andre Green is back from his long-term absence.