Warne is given one-year rolling deal by Millers
TONY STEWART insists he is happy to hand the tools to Paul Warne to build a new and sustainable Rotherham United and is not fazed by his ‘rookie’ status.
Warne’s managerial baptism has, in his own words, been “brutal” after winning just three times in 22 games in charge.
But Millers’ chairman Stewart is looking at the bigger picture and believes that he has found the perfect figure to reconstruct the club and has handed him a oneyear rolling deal. Former Miller Richie Barker appears in line to be named as assistant.
Despite his underwhelming statistics, the rot had set in for the Millers before Warne was handed the reins initially on a caretaker basis. Impressed with the way Warne has shown strength and leadership amid considerable adversity, Stewart, who has pledged to back Warne with a generous ‘top-five’ budget in League One next season. said: “Paul has greatly impressed the board in a number of areas, in what has been a very difficult situation over the past few months.
“He may be new to management, but all first-time managers have to start somewhere. In Paul, we have someone who understands this club, and the type of players and characters needed to succeed.”
While the Millers campaign has been calamitous, many observers felt that it was an accident waiting to happen, with the club’s poor long-term planning regarding player recruitment, a lack of a coherent footballing plan and lamentable training ground infrastructure being fully exposed.
After the long-awaited arrival earlier this year of a head of recruitment in Jamie Johnson, the decision to hand a deal to Warne represents another key piece in the jigsaw, with a new assistant boss to be named shortly and redevelopment of the club’s Roundwood training ground to start soon.
Stewart added: “We earned rapid success on the field with back-to-back promotions, followed by three seasons in the Championship. In reality, the infrastructure behind the scenes couldn’t catch up with the success on it, but I would not swap those good times for anything. The lessons we’ve learned will stand us in good stead.
“The next time we are in the Championship, and I have no doubt that there will be future success for this club, we will be stronger and the foundations will be rock solid.”