What Rotherham United boss Paul Warne had to say about the January transfer window

The Millers are knee-deep in a relegation battle, having taken 16 points from their opening 20 games – a return that leaves them in the bottom three.

Warne has conceded his squad needs reinforcing this month if they are to have a go at staying up and is keen to avoid a repeat of previous years at this level.

In the 2018/19 campaign the Millers had a real shot at beating the drop with a good nucleus of a squad, but were unable to get sufficient help in during January and eventually went down.

Warne knows the importance of the next few weeks.

He told the Star: “It is imperative. If you work out our points per game we are not achieving enough.

“If we can improve the players and help the players out by bringing in a little bit more quality that has got to help.

“January is the hardest window for us and we were going through players, if you want to go and get the best striker out of League One you'll be surprised to know the League One club doesn't want to sell him.

“That is always a problem, we have to be creative, we have to move some players out of.

“The last Championship campaign we had a good nucleus of a team but really we relied on Smudge (Michael Smith) the whole season.

“It is imperative this window that we come out stronger than we went in.

“I probably said the same thing on the last two occasions, but we do go into it trying to do as much business as we can, the chairman says he is fully supportive of any changes and he always has been, but is has to be affordable and acceptable to all.

“We do need to come out the window stronger.”

Warne believes fresh faces can also help the dressing room.

“If nothing else it shakes the dressing room up,” he added. “I don't want to sound like Ronnie (Moore) and Breck (John Breckin) but they always used to say when somebody comes in and you don't know who it is and they sit beside you, you're thinking, 'Is he a really non-scoring striker who can also play out wide, because if he is, I am snookered'.

“Sometimes you just have to shuffle the pack and January is a great window for that.”

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