Matt Hamshaw on the time frame of a Rotherham United reset

Matt Hamshaw is the Millers manager who was a coach during the memorable five-year spell when the club won three League One promotions between 2018 and 2022.

The new boss has charged himself with returning the club to its old ethos of teamwork, all-out effort, enviable fitness levels and respect for the badge.

He's expecting an up-and-down few months, signs of real progress by the time of the festive schedule and then a sustained, gradual push to bring back the kind of success he helped to achieve as part of Paul Warne's regime.

“It's a young group, a new group,” said Hamshaw who has made ten signings so far in his first transfer window since taking the hot-seat in March. “I said the season is going to be a roller coaster and we got all of that in the first 90 minutes.”

He was referring to the opening-day 2-1 third-tier victory over Port Vale last Saturday when his side were rampant in the first half and then fell away so much after the break that they were left hanging on for all three points.

“We're going to get that for the first two to three months, even up to Christmas,” he added. “There are a lot of plusses and some minuses – things we can definitely work on.”

‘Reset’ is a word the boss has used often over the summer as he gets down to work with his new backroom team, assistant manager Dale Tonge, coach Richard Wood and goalkeeper coach Andy Warrington.

“It can take years, I hate to say it,” he said. “Without speaking out of turn, I think the club has been in a bit of a bad position these last three years. I don't think I'm the first person to say that.

“I'm trying to focus on today and moving forward but it's going to take a lot of time. That doesn't mean that results won't be good, that just means we have to identify what we should be as a club and how we get there.

“We have to have a strategy. We've seen clubs not too far up the road from here in Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday find it difficult to get out of this division because they didn't really have a plan for how to do it.”

Hamshaw became an experienced operator in League One and also at the level above during his first spell with Rotherham and then in a two-and-a-half-year stint at Derby County.

“In this division you come up against all types of opposition,” he said. “What I mean by that is, when you play in the Championship generally teams stick to a structure and principles.

“If they're a possession-based team, they don't just throw the ball into the box even if they're behind in the 93rd minute. They try to score a goal in the way that their philosophy dictates.

“In this league, teams do whatever it takes to win. You get the randomness, the long throws, the free-kicks. Then you also get the good-quality players. It's a really tough league to get out of. There will be a number of surprise results throughout the season.”

He knows what's required and there will be echoes of the past in the building of a brighter future.

“When I was here last time, there was a clear strategy,” he said. “We knew what a Rotherham team looked like. I'm trying to get back to that.”