Rotherham United manager Neil Redfearn has claimed that the current crop of players at his disposal are not good enough to avoid relegation from the Championship this season.
The Millers lost for the third time on the bounce away to Huddersfield Town on Tuesday night, leaving them in the relegation zone and four points from safety.
Redfearn has picked up just seven points from his 11 games at the helm so far, but he believes that the summer recruitment weakened the squad and has left him with an uphill struggle to stay in the second tier.
"This squad of players isn't good enough at this level, it's as simple as that. This is common knowledge, we are second from bottom, we just scraped by last year, probably didn't recruit very well in the summer," he told reporters.
"We let good players go, [Kari] Arnason, [Craig] Morgan, [Alex] Revell, [Ben] Pringle, better players than what we have got, we brought in players who are sub-standard in the summer and now we are left with this.
"This might sound a bit harsh but these are the facts."
Rotherham take on promotion candidates Hull City on Saturday before a bottom-of-the-table tie against Bolton Wanderers on Boxing Day.