Baggies Sink Millers

Rotherham United 0 West Bromwich Albion 2
                                             Diangana (54), J Wallace (90)

It wasn’t the start for Rotherham’s new Head Coach Leam Richardson would have wanted this evening at the New York Stadium – and it wasn’t a result the Millers faithful in the stands wanted either.

It was a quiet start for both sides as neither seemed capable of stringing passes together with the first attempt at goal coming from the West Brom on six minutes when a short corner came out to Darnell Furlong who saw his shot go way past the upright. And minutes later a poor challenge by Furlong on Cohen Bramall got him the first yellow of the game. The Millers first shot on goal came on twenty minutes when a cross from Ollie Rathbone found the head of Jordan Hugill but it went straight into the waiting arms of Baggies ‘keeper Alex Palmer. Nice running from Seb Revan saw him win free-kicks on more than one occasion before a ball across the park from Furlong found Grady Diangana whose shot from just outside the box sailed wide. The hosts won a throw in which Sean Morrison took long towards Hugill who made a pest of himself forcing Palmer to clear and with no other red shirt waiting to pounce the ball was further cleared by the Baggies. A run from Revan which started way inside his own half saw him pass a number of opponents before he took a shot from a tight angle inside the box that went just over leaving it goalless at half-time.

The second half didn’t start any better with nobody appearing to want to get the ball up-field it spent a lot of time with either one or the other goalkeeper until the fifty-second minute when a Conor Townsend free-kick was sent into the box finding Jayson Molumby whose shot went wide. But just minutes later West Brom took the lead after the Republic of Ireland international was given way to much space and sent a cross in which Dexter Lembikisa was unfortunate to divert into the path of Grady Diangana on the edge of the area whose shot appeared to take a slight deflection and went past Viktor Johansson the Rotherham ‘keeper and into the back of the net sending the one thousand two hundred travelling fans wild. At the other end Jordan Hugill got into a good position but found himself surrounded before managing to get the ball to Arvin Appiah who put the ball not only high but wide before Christ Tiehi won a free-kick which came to nothing. Two changes for the Baggie saw Tom Fellows and Jed Wallace replace Grady Diangana and Jayson Moulumby which was followed minutes later by the Millers fetching on Grant Hall and Sam Nombe for Jamie Lindsay and Arvin Appiah. Darnell Furlong sent a nice ball for Okay Yokuslu who saw his shot from outside the box well blocked by Hakeem Odoffin. The visitors made another change with Jeremy Sarmiento who strolled across the pitch to let Pipa on in his place while Georgie Kelly came on five minutes later replacing Jordan Hugill for the hosts. Kelly had only been on the pitch a minute when he won a free-kick which Ollie Rathbone took sending it in high for Nombe to flick goalwards but the ball went wide. As the board went up for six extra minutes the Baggies got their second goal after Odoffin brought down Alex Mowatt in the centre just on the edge of the area which Wallace smashed towards goal the ball hitting the underneath of the crossbar as it flew into the net. More changes saw former Millers’ favourite Semi Ajayi on for Darnell Furlong and Nathaniel Chalobah replace Okay Yokuslu with the Millers putting Tom Eaves on for Ollie Rathbone. In the last minute of time added on Eaves held the ball up before sending it to Nombe who saw Alex Palmer save his shot.

A second home loss in a few days for the Millers and I think Leam Richardson will know he’s got a big job on his hands if he has any hopes of keeping Rotherham in the Championship – or has he been brought in to get ready for League One next season?

I think it’s quite obvious to anyone who watches Rotherham that we need goals – keeping clean sheets is all well and good if you can actually keep them – but more than once tonight (and it’s not just been tonight) ‘messing about’ in front of goal, tippy tappy passes around our own area has got us into trouble. And the times we pass the ball back when a player has actually made space down the wing was rather infuriating tonight.

We’ve let forty-one goals in this season – and, let’s face it, without Viktor in goal it could have been double that.

Attendance – 9,567 with 1,237 of those being Baggies

Referee – Samuel Barrott