Why it had to be Steve Evans and no-one else for Rotherham United owner Tony Stewart

While the Millers were heading for Championship relegation under previous bosses Matt Taylor and Leam Richardson, Evans – the man behind two promotions a decade ago – was enhancing his reputation with his deeds at Stevenage.

Stewart is shouldering the responsibility for the club's decline this term and wishes he'd turned earlier to the 61-year-old who returned last week for a second stint in charge.

“This season we have seen failure after failure,” he said. “I’m included in that failure as the custodian of Rotherham.

“I’m the producer. We put on the show and if it’s not right the person to blame is me.”

Taylor was sacked in November and Richardson followed suit this month after the drop back to League One had been confirmed.

Stewart had considered turning to Evans before either of those men were appointed and wasn't going to stand back for a third time.

“I said: ‘We’ve had two attempts at it now. We need to get someone proven, someone tried and tested.’

“I was thinking: ‘Why aren’t we getting Steve Evans in?’ He’s probably the best manager we’ve had and he never failed.’”

The pair enjoyed three successful years together before parting company when they disagreed on the way forward following Rotherham's second-tier survival in 2015.

The Millers came in for plenty of criticism when they took a month to replace Taylor with Richardson and Stewart has offered up a reason why the process took so long.

Neil Warnock and Chris Wilder ruled themselves out of contention at the time and several candidates - including Nathan Jones, Gary Rowett and Mark Warburton - rejected the chance to come to New York.

The chairman said: “The delay was that one or two people who we interviewed gave back word and we lost a couple of weeks on that.”