Richardson Had ‘Horrendous’ Week

Rotherham United Head Coach Leam Richardson said he felt ‘physically sick’ for the travelling fans at Norwich on Saturday and Coventry the Tuesday before.

‘I’ll take full blame,’ he told Radio Sheffield after the five-nil defeat at Carrow Road. ‘I pick the team, I put them out there and I take full responsibility which, as the manager, is what you do.

‘In the last two games if you don’t do the basics, the fundamentals right at these levels you get punished. We can’t carry anybody we aren’t that type of football club. We’ve got to make sure we are as one, united, going forward to try and achieve the same goal. We can’t have different agendas, different ideas. But, at the minute, I’m the leader so take full responsibility.

‘I’ve told the players that as long as I’m manager the one thing they are aware of are my demands, my expectations.

‘When you are in a position like this everything goes against you. They’ve scored two worldly goals today, scored from a set-piece which was our doing, they’ve scored a first goal which was an aimless cross in our box where we’ve got three or four defenders plus a goalkeeper who should deal with it and before you know it you are one, two three-nil down. Then you’ve got to ask yourselves questions. The desire comes from within and if you’re not careful you’re in for a five-nil hiding and we’ve done that twice this week.’

There were a number of changes on Saturday from Tuesday night at Coventry with Leam saying, ‘Everybody’s had a go. It’s only fair to give everybody a fair crack and nobody can knock at my door and say they haven’t played.

‘I’m a football manager and I’m used to winning. I’ve never lost nine games on the spin in my entire life. And this week for me has been horrendous, as a manager, as a coach, for the players, for the club.

‘Now we’ve got nine games left where we have to take some pride out of them.’