Rotherham United boss Paul Warne targets ‘seven, eight or nine’ new signings Yorkshire News

With the dust now settling after the club’s third instant promotion back to the Championship under his watch, thoughts are turning to recruitment.

Rotherham also has a host of players out of contract, including talismanic striker Michael Smith, who is out of contract next month and attracting interest from second-tier rivals.

The Millers are talking to the 29-year-old about a new deal. Chiedozie Ogbene’s contract is also ending, but the club can activate a clause to keep him for another 12 months.

Jamie Lindsay, Michael Ihiekwe, Viktor Johansson, Mickel Miller, Joe Mattock and Josh Kayode are among others whose deals are expiring.

Warne said: “I think we’re going to deal with the hits as they come. Are we going to lose a couple of players? Maybe…

“Will we have to recruit others? Yes.

“When you go up, of course you want to keep your best players. What we did last year with Smudge, and I said it and I don’t think people believed me, we didn’t have to sell Smudge (Smith) when he went down to League One. The president was happy to let his contract run out and lose value, but we used it.

“This year, we have many players with a one-year contract. If the money is not right for the club, they will not sell. So we will keep them and that is good. But if we keep them, it has to be for the right price that allows us to replace them.

“We will have to recruit seven, eight or nine players who are better than the team we have, which is a very, very difficult task.

“Pretty much every year I’ve been in management, we’ve had to rebuild the team every summer and this is no different.

“We just hope that the new characters bring joy to the team and something different and attack the league like we always have.”