Rotherham United transfer news: Steve Evans planning tweaks, not a rebuild, but durability must be at a premium

And with plenty of football to be played before then, he is anxious not to get sidetracked by the thought of what the new year holds.

Evans signed 14 new players after the Millers' Championship relegation last summer, shipping out 16.

But ahead of Tuesday's visit from Lincoln City – their 17th league game of the season – they were only two points above the relegation zone.

"You don't have to rebuild it because we've got good players here," said Evans, when asked what was ahead.

"But we need to keep players free of injury – or they need to keep themselves free of injury.

"There's no player wants to be in here (Roundwood) seven days a week doing rehab with the medical team when the other players have got a day off. They don't want to do it.

"They don't want to turn up on a matchday and have a big coat on sat up in the stand, they want to be in the New York theatre playing football.

"So it's not a rebuild but there'll certainly be two or three that we'll need to move around and our chairman (Tony Stewart) has been supportive of that.

"But let's worry about the games to come first.

"We just have to get some points and get up the table before we really go with any purpose to the chairman. He said to me last week, 'Let's sort the next three or four games out and then we can really plan for January.'"

As Evans intimates, injuries have been a handicap for the Millers this season with only five of his summer additions making double-figure league starts this season.

Injuries were an issue last season too, and one Evans’ predecessor Leam Richardson had often spoken about taking a deep look into before the club changed course in April and brought back the Scot for a second spell as manager.

It suggests there are wider problems, with Richardson especially critical of the training facilities at Roundwood, but perhaps puts a high premium on durability from January’s mid-season recruits.