Under pressure: Alan Stubbs determined to stop the rot at Rotherham United

The hosts were taken over by Trillion Trophy Asia on Monday after protracted negotiations and they got their new era off to winning start against rock-bottom Millers.

Goals from Michael Morrison, Lukas Jutkiewicz, Jacques Maghoma and David Cotterill did it for Blues, but they were far from their best, with three of the goals coming from defensive blunders.

Still Gary Rowett’s men were able to extend their unbeaten home run to five games and optimism around St Andrew’s will be high.

Rotherham, who have lost all seven of their away games conceding 23 goals in the process, were far better in attack than they were in defence and goals from Danny Ward and Jon Taylor kept them in it.

They are already six points adrift of safety, although Stubbs said he was not worried about his position.

Stubbs knows where the problems lie, but he admits he is having difficulty doing anything about them.

“I think it’s like we have got half the team doing what we want them to and then half the team not doing what we want them to,” he said. “That is the disappointing thing. We have contributed significantly to the game tonight, we have scored two good goals.

“It’s so disappointing. I heard Mick McCarthy say the hardest thing in football is scoring goals, ours is the other way round. We can score goals but we can’t defend. All we are asking the players to do is their own jobs.

“We need to score three or four goals to win a game and that is not acceptable.

“I am not worried about my position, I am more concerned with the players getting rewards for the good things they are doing. I want to turn this around as quickly as possible.”

Things will definitely get tougher than this for Blues, who are unlikely to come up against such generous defending any time soon. The beleaguered Millers would have got somehting out of the game had it not been for calamity in their own box and Rowett knows it.

“I have got to be careful what I say, to say we didn’t play well when we have just won 4-2, that would be disrespectful to the opposition manager,” he added. “We played well in spells but I was really disappointed with some aspects of our game.

“As a team at times we didn’t defend as well as we would like to. We scored goals at right times and that helped. We allowed them chances and on another night a different team would make that 3-3. We have got away with one tonight.

“I think it was important to get the win. It was amazing for the fans and I am sure it feels like a new era.

“As the manager it feels like we have got a little bit more continuity. We have felt the effects at the training ground and that has been important. I am really pleased with what we have got and moving forward it looks quite positive.”