Steve McClaren confident Tony Stewart will back Rotherham United in January as chairman's legacy under threat

For as long as they are not doing, there will be questions about the man at the top of the operation.

Earlier this month, there was widespread mutiny in the Highbury away end as the Millers dropped into the League Two relegation zone to a soundtrack of “We want Stewart out!”

They quickly scrambled clear, but consecutive draws are a long way from being enough to ensure the undercurrent runs dry.

But former England manager McClaren sees a chairman still engaged, still passionate, and still trying to support the club, which is why he is confident money will be found for the work the Millers need to do in the next transfer window.

Stewart made Rotherham United what they are. The stadium McClaren is sat in as he speaks to The Yorkshire Post and other local media was bankrolled by him and will long outlast him.

It was Stewart who oversaw the Millers' rise to the Championship but after years yo-yoing between the second and third tiers, they have broken the cycle in the wrong way.

In his early 80s, the question is whether it is time for Stewart to move on as football's crazy financial model increasingly prices out even rich local businessmen such as him. Many fans think it is.

As a long-time friend of Stewart's, McClaren was brought in this summer to be a bridge between the chairman and the first-team, passing on his extensive experience to Alex Bruce, in his first job as a Football League head coach.

But he is also a link to the public, and on Tuesday he was doing his bit to defend his boss.

“I've worked closely with Tony. He's given us practically everything that we wanted,” stresses McClaren.

“We've smartened up the training ground, we're talking about improving the academy. We've also signed Brandon Williams and Dominic Iorfa after the (transfer) deadline.

“Tony and I have developed a certain trust.

“We've brought in players outside the window and gone a little bit above budget. We credit him for that. There's no criticism – and should be no criticism – in terms of what's happening above.

“It's basically what's happening on the field. Tony's like me: we're frustrated together.

“He loves this club, he loves the community and he wants to give something back to Rotherham. The last three years have not been the best and we're starting again.

“Like me, like him, like all the fans, it's 'Can we have this yesterday please?' It doesn't work like that. He understands that.

“He tries to explain the logic of the finance side to me and I explain the logic of the football side to him. Sometimes he believes me, sometimes I believe him, sometimes not. But we have good debates about it.

“He wants more, I want more. That's what we're demanding every day from Alex, from his staff, from the players.

“We're quite cool about it and not worried about it, but we need to start winning and we need to start performing.”

Inevitably, McClaren is now thinking about the transfer window which does not open until the new year, and hopeful he will be backed again.

“Recruitment goes on and on,” he says. “I think we had a week's break after the summer one and got back to it.

“Regular recruitment meetings are being held to talk about January and assess what we've brought in.

“What can take us forward, what can't, how we can move things around, how can we improve? I'm positive that whatever backing we need from the chairman, we'll get.

“We've had it so far and I don't expect that to fall by the wayside come January.

“We look at the squad, assess it, knowing that we're not going to get everything and everybody right. It is a start.

“I've been in many recruitment analysis meetings, and they say only 50 per cent of signings work out no matter what work you do. We don't want that, we want more than 50 per cent, obviously.

“At the moment, hand on heart, I'm happy with what we've got.

“Now, it's purely about what we're doing out on the field on Saturday afternoons and Tuesday nights.

“That's the key to everything.

“We don't blame anybody, we don't say: 'Well, it's because of this, because of that.' It's purely down to what we're doing – and this is normal procedure when you're building a club from practically scratch.”

Whether people buy McClaren's assessment or not is up to them but ultimately, as he knows, the case for the defence is only as strong as Rotherham's results. There are no words which could save Stewart's reputation from relegation to non-league football.