Did We Overreact?

Rotherham United lost their first away game of the season on Saturday to neighbours Doncaster Rovers despite taking a first-half lead – and Millers fans, on social media, have been very vocal.

There are a lot of ‘Warne Out’ posts with some saying he’s ‘inept’, ‘too nice’, while Jim on Vital Rotherham’s Facebook page posted ‘in a club not obsessed with saving money your team would have been OUT by now.’ and on the front page of Vital Rotherham Kevin says he can’t accept some of the ‘guff’ that the manager says quoting him as saying ‘For whatever reason it isn’t coming off for us’ and answering, ‘A manager should bl**dy well know the reason.’

Most of the moaning (for want of another word) was said straight after Saturday’s game so it could be that some were letting off steam but some have held their thoughts for a couple of days and still feel aggrieved at losing from being one-up. Maybe it could be that there was a bit of over-reaction?

Now I’ve held off with most of my views and tried to get my thoughts together. Yes, I was peed off on Saturday and yes I was pretty annoyed at the way we seemed to lie down and die when Rovers equalised. But then I thought about the first half of that game when we were well on top and, to me, our players were playing well and as a team – our passing was possibly the best so far this season and our balls into the box often found a purple shirt. Plus we defended like a team when Rovers did break. Even the start of the first half we looked the stronger. Then Ennis, who had come on at the start of the half, suddenly found his feet plus Sadlier came on from the bench and Rovers seemed transformed and the Millers didn’t have an answer. They scored and we looked startled and then our energy levels fell and Doncaster were all over us.

We put subs on too but they didn’t have the same impact as their counterparts did.

Football is a strange game and for forty-five minutes our fans were happy to be singing ‘We’ve got Warnie-ola’ but as soon as the play changed and we went one down it was all moaning and groaning and Warnie-ola was suddenly the ‘bad guy’.

This was our first away loss – yes, we’ve lost and drawn at home – but two away wins (in league and cup) can’t be forgotten.

Although I was never actually against Paul Warne being made Manager I always had the thought that he might have been better as a number two with someone with experience coming in to aid him. That wasn’t to be and so I fully gave my support to Warney.

This summer we lost a lot of our players – yes, some I wish had stopped, some I think we could have tried harder and persuaded to stay (I’m not really sure whose job at the club that would be to be honest). We know it’s going to take a team time to gel and even when we’ve won games there has still been parts of the play that have looked sloppy and needed work.

There are still things that we need to work on. And I’m just thinking that perhaps we should give this team ten or twelve games to see how it’s going.

These are just my thoughts and I’m wondering what others are thinking.