'We need characters like Leo, Woody and Smudge' ... The David Rawson Rotherham United Fan Column

Two games, both there for us. Against Mansfield, we couldn't find a way to win. Against Huddersfield, we managed to find a way to lose. Plymouth looks like the exception, not the rule.

At this point in the season, when opportunities present themselves you have to take them. A tough game on paper, a match where you might take a draw going in, turns out to be winnable. A chance reveals itself. You have to seize it.

We didn't. Bluntly, it looks like we can't. It's all right saying that we played better than we have done for a while, that we looked a decent side in spells, that things aren’t falling for us, that missing key players to injury hurts us. These are valid reasons why we’re up against it. They can't be excuses. There is no excuse for leaving points behind if you're serious about staying up.

Are we, though? Serious about staying up?

Serious about staying up looks like resolution and structure. It looks gritty and ugly if it has to. It looks like people standing up and being counted when it matters.

And yet, here we are, at the “business end” of the season, and we're still “managing” the workload of key players by taking them out of games early, because we’re more afraid of what happens if we leave them out there than what they might help us achieve.

If we'd flogged some players and won against Mansfield and then slumped to defeat with half a team missing against Huddersfield, we'd have been better off. We withdrew Benson against Plymouth to protect him and he hasn’t played since anyway.

Leo Fortune-West made himself available despite a fractured cheekbone. Woody couldn't walk on a Monday after a game on Saturday but still played a full-on 90 minutes on Tuesday. Michael Smith had injections to numb the pain in his feet week after week, and still turned out to take a physical hammering for the cause

Those players were serious about their business. It's going to take some of that to keep us in the division.

At the moment, though, there's this odd sense we're playing within ourselves, that the team's holding back a few percentage points of performance. Every game, I feel like if we really, really wanted it, there’s more in us. There’s this weird space, this hesitancy.

It’s like everyone is waiting for someone else to take the lead. The fans are waiting for the players, who are waiting for the fans. There' s no spark, drive or direction anywhere.

No-one seems bothered enough that we’re odds on to be in the fourth division next season.