Rotherham United boss Steve Evans has his say on the Roundwood situation

Around £250,000 has been spent tackling drainage issues at the club's base in Parkgate and the pitches there are now in pristine condition.

For now, Evans' squad are being put through their early pre-season paces away from the complex, but they will be back there soon to build up to League One opening day on August 10.

Previous bosses Matt Taylor and Leam Richardson both went public with justified criticism of the pitches during last season as Rotherham were hit by huge injury problems on their way to relegation from the Championship.

The approach from Evans, back in the hot-seat since April for a second spell in charge following a double-promotion reign a decade ago, is much different.

“I think that over a quarter of a million pounds has been spent on the playing surfaces. They're going to be absolute carpets," he said. “Roundwood is looking absolutely magnificent.”

The new boss believes the Millers' troubles last term stemmed from their recruitment under Taylor when the club signed a series of 30-something players who had plenty of second-tier experience but came with chequered fitness records.

“Listen, as a manager, we all make excuses, we all try to hide sometimes from the obvious,” he said. “But it was clear: if you sign a lot of players with historical injury problems, you're going to get problems.

“It doesn't matter if you're training on Wembley, you're going to get injuries.”

Grant Hall, Sean Morrison, Shane Ferguson, Tyler Blackett, Daniel Ayala, Lee Peltier, Sam Clucas and Cafu were older players who spent time on the sidelines.

There were times during the 2023/24 campaign when bad weather left Roundwood unusable, forcing Rotherham to train elsewhere on artificial surfaces.

The extensive work carried out since should mean that those difficulties are a thing of the past.

The Millers trained at Roundwood during the glory years under Evans when they rose from League Two in 2012/13 and then went straight up to the Championship in 2013/14.

The boss said: “It's really interesting ... at times during the success we had here, the training ground wasn't always in the best condition towards the end of the season.

“But we didn't have injury problems, we didn't have issues and we didn't have a blame culture. I certainly won't be blaming it.”