Michael Ihiekwe was a key part of the Rotherham United side last season as they gained promotion to the Championship.

The centre-back made 42 league appearances for the Millers showing his abilities going forward too, scoring three goals and providing four assists.

Despite achieving promotion to a higher league, the 29-year-old joined teammate Michael Smith in taking the step back down to League One to join Sheffield Wednesday.

Therefore, unsurprisingly, there has been a fair amount of anger from Rotherham fans as their League One team of the year players took the step back down.

However, Ihiekwe has admitted that he understands how the fans feel as when explaining his departure he told The Star: "There's an element of sadness there. In any walk of life, when you've been somewhere for that long there's going to be sad feelings bout going.

"It's football, I'll move on and Rotherham will be fine without me. It's on to the next challenge for me now.

"Listen, I'm a football fan myself. I'm a big Liverpool follower. I get where the Rotherham fans are coming from, I fully understand it. You can't control how people are going to think or feel about you. All I can say is that I didn't take my decision lightly, I had to have a long, long think about it. It was based on doing right by my family.

"The size of the club [Sheffield Wednesday] is huge. I know hat from being around the area. The dan base is massive. As I said earlier, it came down to me being 29 and doing the best for my family. That's it really.

"I came close to staying. There were points in the negotiations where I thought it might happen. I'm 29 and at this stage of my career I had to take my time with the decision and speak to everyone around me - my family and missus and all that stuff.

"It wasn't something I could just do in a couple of days. I appreciate Rotherham making me the offer they did but, ultimately, I had to do what was best for my family."

The Verdict: 

You can't blame Rotherham fans for being upset about this double poach especially when they just gained promotion to the Championship and now players are taking steps down back to League One.

However, Ihiekwe is under no illusions about the decision he made and is understanding it from the point of view of his former side.

Whatever his reasons were, the defender made a choice to move on from Rotherham and with them facing the challenge of staying up next season, they will be keen to have players that want to be at the club and are committed to the cause.