Richardson ‘Second Half Was More Even’

Rotherham United Head Coach Leam Richardson told Radio Sheffield that he was ‘disappointed for the fans’ after today’s one-nil home loss to neighbours Sheffield Wednesday.

‘I thought Sheffield started the game better than us but we came into it with our honesty and made it competitive. What we lack in certain areas we make up in our work ethic. I felt we possibly could have crept back into the game. The goal is all our doing, which is disappointing.’

Ed Note – the goal was certainly all our doing – because, again, we went backwards when it was so much easier (in my mind, maybe not others) to have kept running with the ball. Yes, we might still have lost it but we also might have won a throw-in, a corner, a foul.

‘They were doing the same thing we were trying too, but a little bit better,’ the Millers Boss said, ‘and they turned our back four more times than we did theirs in the first half. I thought the second half was more even.

‘We needed to make more positive decisions on the pitch and be a little more aggressive. We are trying to improve on many fronts but when you are trying to improve on certain fronts the attention comes from other things and you’ve got a lot of work to do. I was made very aware of this when I came in from the Chairman about the issues and challenges both on and off the pitch. That hasn’t changed. If we want to be better in six, eighteen months we have to keep moving forward. A lot of it comes from the quality of decisions, the quality of player, how we work and where we work and what we do. Fitness levels around the squad need addressing, we are competitive for sixty-five or seventy minutes, then our levels drop dramatically which, at this level, they can’t.

‘The honesty and endeavour shines through and if people don’t see that I’m watching a different game.

‘We didn’t fill our bench again today. I’ve got one centre-half fit and, at this level, that becomes a challenge. It’s not an excuse. It’s either something we can give up on or try and work hard throughout the week and be competitive and I thought we were competitive today.’

I think, in a game like today when you’ve got big centre-forwards playing against you we missed Sean Morrison’s presence. When asked if he was OK or it was a situation that he had to manage, Leam said, ‘We’re honestly not sure yet’ which, to me, isn’t sounding very good. Though I hope I’m wrong in that.