Millers Boss ‘Heartbroken For Players’

Rotherham United Manager Paul Warne said he was heartbroken for his players after tonight’s latest home loss.

Speaking to Sky Sports after losing two-one to Middlesbrough the Millers Boss said that his players put the effort in tonight, playing their fifth game in eleven days.

The Millers went in front on three minutes through an Angus MacDonald headed goal but the Gaffer said that the game turned on the red card given to Matt Crooks fifteen minutes later with it looking to most people that it was a clash of heads.

‘We started the game well, scored the goal and I was feeling comfortable,’ Warne said,’ but losing one of your most important players gives them (Middlesbrough) a lift as they were playing against ten men for seventy minutes.

‘If it’s a fair red card then that’s how football is but if it isn’t and it gets rescinded then, although it’s a good thing, I will be hugely disappointed. I will have someone apologising saying, ‘sorry but we got that wrong’ which doesn’t help me at this moment in time.’

Like the watching fan Warney was frustrated but admitted he hadn’t seen the incident back at full speed saying, ‘I honestly don’t think he saw the player coming and if the foul is head-to-head then that is some brave player and I don’t think I’ve got any of them that brave. But, who knows, Crooksy could have stayed on the pitch and they could have beat us five-one. I’m heartbroken for the lads with the effort they put in. They are so close to greatness and yet they aren’t.

‘I hope people who watch us appreciate what we are trying to do. We are up against it every week but with a player down for seventy minutes it was just an ask too much tonight.’

From the other side of the coin, ‘Boro Manager, Neil Warnock did think it was a red card.

Paul Warne doesn’t think he’s wrong about the incident leading up to the red card but he could well be without one of his most influential players for our South Yorkshire derby at Oakwell on Saturday. However this last two weeks played out it was always going to be difficult and this weekend’s game against Barnsley isn’t going to get any easier.