Rotherham United fans will be hoping manager Steve Evans and his erstwhile assistant Paul Raynor can roll out the old magic on their return to South Yorkshire but the game has evolved since their first spell at the club, and they have too.

The pair are assured a place in Millers folklore for the job they did not just taking the club from League Two to the Championship but keeping them there before leaving in September 2015.

This time they have inherited a club in the third tier, badly bruised after a Championship season which saw them relegated with just 27 points and 37 goals from their 46 matches, but they have already started lifting its spirits.

In many respects the club is much-changed from their initial three-year spell and although Raynor and Evans treat each other much the same as they did then, the assistant admits they have to handle the squad differently these days.

Not a yes man: Paul Raynor, middle, says he is not afraid to tell Steve Evans he's wrong, even if the Rotherham United manager usually wins the argument. Tony Stewart, right, brought the pair back to the club in April.

"Players have changed," admits Raynor, whose on-field career included a spell in Huddersfield Town's midfield in the 1980s.

"They're brought up differently now. You can't get into them like you used to.

"You can still gee them up but there's a way to do it. How you do it nowadays is slightly different.

"Players today aren't used to people getting in their faces, so to speak, and shouting.

Steve Evans and Paul Raynor, left, meet the media on their return to Rotherham United. (Picture: Kerrie Beddows)

"You get a negative reaction and they go into their shells. First time around, we could tell Kari Arnason: 'Pull your bloody finger out.' He'd get angry and he'd go out there and deliver. It's different now."

Raynor’s relationship with his boss, Evans, though, remains much the same, with arguments all part of the creative process.

"We fall out all the time," says Raynor, "but we generally get the right answers.

"We thrash it out. I'm not a 'yes' man, I don't always agree, and that's what the gaffer appreciates.

Gillingham assistant manager Paul Raynor (left) and manager Steve Evans during their Gillingham days (Picture: Richard Sellers/PA Wire)

"I tell him if I think he's wrong, we'll debate it together and we normally agree he's right in the first place!

"We get there. We both sing off the same hymn sheet, we both like a brand of football that is front-footed and entertaining."

The 61-year-old manager and his 58-year-old assistant have an old-school image and an abrasive nature on the touchline but their success in the nine years between his spells at the New York Stadium show they have been able to keep up with the changes.

Nottingham Forest have been happy to entrust them with their highly-rated 19-year-old forward Esapa Osong on a season-long loan.

The key, as Evans points out, is recognising how best to speak to individual players to get the desired response but whether young or old, he sees no harm in a bit of plain-speaking.

"There are players here with a lot of experience," the Scot points out. "(Lee) Peltier's played in the Champions League with Liverpool; look where (Sean) Morrison has played as well.

"If ever we were going to vent at them, those lads would take it straight on the chin.

"But in the last eight or nine years younger players have come through. You have to speak to those players carefully, you have to get them back onside.

"It's wholly changed from where it was.

"I have a way of telling players what they need to hear, which is the truth. They need to understand why they're not in the team, they need to know what they need to do to get in the team.

"That's the direction these kids are getting at your Manchester Citys, Arsenals and Manchester Uniteds when they're coming through.

"If they're not getting a game in the under-21s or progressing to the first-team squad, they get told why and they get told in a professional way.

"That's what we've learned over the last five or six years: if that works at the elite level, it can work at our level."

One thing definitely has not changed, though, and has been at the forefront of their thinking in a squad overhaul which has seen 12 new players added so far.

"We know the Rotherham fans, we know what they like," offers Raynor.

"They like blood and thunder, they like players who are committed, who run hard, create chances and score goals.

"We need to get them off their seats and smiling again."

Whether they will be able to succeed in that remains to be seen but a recruitment drive which has had a heavy emphasis on players who know what it is like to play in League One and what it takes to win promotion from it, combined with happy memories of Evans and Raynor's last spell, have given fresh hope to a club demoralised by the events of last season.

Actions speak louder than words, but at least the Millers fans have two men in the dugout who are speaking their language once more.

Steve Evans and Paul Raynor: Bark still worse than their bite, but how experience has mellowed Rotherham United duo