Something's shifting, but what will we become? The David Rawson Rotherham United Fan Column

Is that the duck’s beak, or the rabbit’s ears? It’s somehow both at the same time. It’s slightly unsettling.

A bit like watching events unfold with us this summer.

Simultaneously, you can see the execution of a calm, methodical plan to “rebuild a football club”, and flailing disarray.

Here’s the duck.

Everyone speaks really well.

There’s a ton of experience knocking around, of a kind that - well - I don’t think we’ve ever seen.

Any club in the Football League would benefit from the accumulated knowledge and skills of the two Steves, McClaren and Agnew.

Alex Bruce is unproven, but he’s been involved in this division. He’s not parachuting in from some gilded Premier League training complex. He’s seen the reality at this level. He doesn’t talk about patterns of play. He talks about power, physique, fight.

And here’s the rabbit

Bruce wasn’t the first choice. We failed to land at least two other candidates. Given how few Football League manager - sorry, head coach - positions there are available at any one time, that’s disconcerting.

We have no more than six or seven players who I’d be confident seeing on the first team sheet of the new season. And some of those might yet be transferred.

As for the “rebuild”, the only tangible output so far seems to be that the youth team now trains at Roundwood. Which seems a decent idea, but is hardly transformative.

So, a duck? Or a rabbit? Or both at the same time?

Undeniably, something has shifted.

There used to be a breezy, almost gauche, self-confidence about the club. We carried on like we were a big club, like we knew what we were doing, like we were a premium operation and success was our due. We sacked managers for being in the bottom four in the Championship, as if that was somehow beneath us, when in truth it was a huge achievement to be there at all.

Last season seems to have shattered all that. There seems to be a recognition that things are fundamentally out of whack. After all, you don’t need to rebuild something that’s standing strong.

McClaren seems to be the boss now, instead of and almost to the exclusion of Tony Stewart.

Our future seems wholly in his hands. If he can’t deliver - either because his ideas are too far above the levels we operate at, or because we simply can’t afford to implement them - it’s not clear what we do.

I want to believe in it. I want a stream of smart signings, a hard-working, battling, all-action team emerge. I want a strong start to the season.

I want to see an unambiguously positive picture for a change.

It might resolve into that. It’s not there yet.

Big few weeks ahead.