My Thoughts On Saturday’s Draw

Rotherham United v Wigan Athletic on Saturday wasn’t the best game in the world although the Millers did start out well and got some good crosses into the box so we shouldn’t have been surprised when Clark Robertson got on the end of one on twenty-eight minutes. But it was very disappointing to let a goal in just four minutes later which, in the end, gave the visitors a point.

All week we’d seen on Social Media that this was a ‘must win game’ for Rotherham and Manager Paul Warne said in his post-match interview that ‘we went out to win the game.’

But did we really? There is no doubt that we had shots at goal scoring one of them. But I’m as convinced as I have been since the start of the season that playing one up front isn’t, to me, a team going out to win a game. My thought is that it’s a team going out to not lose and who are hoping to snatch a goal. Should you really set yourselves up like that at home?

That is not to say, again my thoughts, that we didn’t deserve to take the lead on Saturday, in fact, I thought we were much the better side in the first half, even Wigan Manager Paul Cook said we were ‘unplayable’. Well, I’m not sure about that.

The second half was poor – would it be too harsh to say dire – with Wigan hoofing the ball up at every opportunity and the Millers quickly running out of steam.

Throughout the game Rotherham had set-piece after set-piece – which included corners, long throw-ins and free-kicks and some in good positions. I was disappointed that we didn’t do more with them. Some just didn’t get past the first defender, some got into the box but a player in a red shirt hadn’t, some found the head of a Millers player, one we scored the others were well defended.

I mentioned earlier that we ran out of steam and that is something I’ve noticed over the last few weeks. Balls we would have chased lately we’ve been thinking twice about and leaving. The biggest surprise is that I’m saying this about a Paul Warne team.

Our goal now is to find three teams who are worse than us.

So onto Tuesday night and an away game at Hull. Dare we say, as we have been for the last few games, ‘this is a must win game.’

We need to fight on the pitch – we need to encourage from the stands – mostly we need to score goals.