Millers v Villa Stats

Rotherham United’s stats for last night’s home game against Aston Villa must have looked very different at half-time to the full-time numbers.

The Millers had Villa rattled in the first half – at times they couldn’t deal with us. The penalty save and then Will Vaulks penalty for our goal gave us a great confidence throughout the stadium.

But, as a fan, I knew Villa would change things. I knew they would come out in the second half fighting. They did. They scored two quick goals and we looked devastated. The referee seemed to change his ‘I luv Rotherham’ badge to ‘I luv Villa’ badge and things didn’t go the way we’d have liked.

Yet, we did still have chances. Chances we perhaps should have made more of. But this is something I seem to have been saying all season long.

The stats say that Villa edged possession – forty-eight per cent to fifty-two per cent. Villa were better in the air while the corners were around the same with the Millers having eight to the visitors seven.

Passing accuracy in the opponents half wasn’t much different – Villa’s being sixty per cent to the Millers fifty-five per cent although the visitors crossing and passing were more accurate than ours.

We had nineteen shots at goal of which six were on target. Villa had eight shots on target from fifteen shots at goal. For the neutral it must have been a good game.

Onto Stoke on Saturday and it doesn’t need me to tell anyone associated with the Millers what we need to do.