A quiet transfer window fits with the quiet mood ... David Rawson's Rotherham United fan column

Let’s imagine that, after the dismal defeat at Watford and some frantic activity, Richardson had replaced Taylor at the start of the last international break. A reaction against Leeds, that extra bit of organisation and resilience that saw us claim that precious away win against Birmingham and the home victory over a passive West Brom.

Some downs, of course, but some ups, too and here we are, just two points from safety, the transfer deadline to sign the missing quality and depth looming.

However the club now chooses to spin it, that was a plausible scenario.

Then. Not now.

What was then a four-point gap is now nine. What was then a challenge to convince a player that they could push us over the safety line is now an exercise in persuading them to join an almost certainly hopeless cause.

We’re always at the back of the queue of Championship clubs when it comes to transfers.

This season, there’ll be a few upwardly-mobile League One clubs elbowing themselves ahead of us, too. That’s probably why this has been a dry January for rumour and gossip. Too few players in the squad to let anyone leave. Too few realistic deals available to bring anyone in.

It fits with the mood. Since Taylor was sacked so swiftly after Watford, a strange sense of torpor has set in. It wasn’t just the time it took to appoint a new manager, it was the oddly unfocused, almost lethargic approach we seemed to take to it.

Richardson is a fairly low-key figure in public and his success in stiffening us up defensively has made the games, at times, hard to regard as entertainment. The points deficit has not got much worse under him but hasn’t shown signs of closing either.

It’s like we’re marking time, all holding responses and vague answers. There’s things that Scott has in mind to tackle, but it’s not entirely clear what they are. We need different players to play the way the manager wants to, but it’s not totally obvious what that will look like.

There’s a sense we think we can sort it out in the summer, and we’ll bounce back. We always do. That feels too complacent. Each season tends to inform the next. Drift can lead to slump. Action, even if ultimately futile, injects some momentum.

Realistically, nothing turns this round. In other circumstances, something might have. As it is, the act of being at least seen to try is all we have.