Surrey coach Alan Butcher has admitted the Brown Caps will need a major overhaul over the winter after relegation from the Liverpool Victoria County Championship Division One was all-but confirmed last week.

A humiliating home defeat by an innings and 122-runs to league leaders Hampshire means they have mustered only nine wins from 41 games this summer - with none coming in the County Championship.

The main problem this season - injury to skipper Mark Butcher apart - has been bowling sides out, with Saqlain Mushtaq the club’s leading first-class wicket-taker with just 38 victims.

West Indian Pedro Collins has fallen well short of the requisite number of scalps as has veteran Australian Matt Nicholson, while young pace man Chris Jordan has under performed after bursting onto the scene last season.

Youngster Jade Dernbach has been the one highlight with the ball and Butcher, who insists the re-building has already started, has conceded the Brit Oval’s next generation may not be good enough to make the grade.

“We know we need to rebuild. There is no hiding from that. We have stripped out the old guard over the last couple of seasons,” he said.

“Replacing those players takes time. We’ve given plenty of opportunities to our younger players and apart from Jade, no-one has really grabbed that chance and put in performances that say they should be in the team.

“Forty-five dropped catches have cost us at least three games in the Championship. We’ve lost confidence and belief in our bowling and that has seeped into the rest of the team.

“Some people from outside the club have expressed a wish to play here next year, so the rebuilding started a little while ago.

“We’ve played a lot of cricket under quite a lot of pressure and not enough people have coped well enough with that.”

Stand-in skipper Mark Ramprakash, who has 1,226 runs in the Championship, was at the helm the last time Surrey dropped out of the top-flight in 2005 and looks set to suffer the same ignominious fate this summer.

He is the second highest run-scorer in Division One behind only Marcus Trescothick, but apart from nearly 2,000 runs between Scott Newman and Usman Afzaal’s, there has been little consistent support with the bat.

Surrey, who are not mathematically down, face title-chasing Nottinghamshire in their final four-day game of the campaign needing a miracle to survive and Butcher concedes they have nothing but pride to play for.

“The boys have got show some pride and passion. That is all they can do. They are professionals and that must happen,” he added.

“It is a big game and we owe it to Nottinghamshire and the other title contenders to put in a good performance.”