Today’s Stats – Millers v Blackburn

Rotherham United got a late draw this afternoon at the New York Stadium after visitors Blackburn Rovers had taken a seventeenth minute lead.

It was a good game and although Rovers hadn’t really anything to play for they played their part this afternoon and had fifty-seven per cent of the possession. Their percentage of duels won was also a little better than the Millers although aerial duels came out at fifty/fifty.

Our last visitors of the season also had more corners – seven to four – while Rotherham’s passing accuracy in our opponents half came out at forty-eight per cent. It was pretty even attack wise with Rotherham having fourteen shots at goal of which five were on target while Rovers had six on target from seventeen shots – and didn’t Jamal Blackman bring off a couple of good saves today? – five of our shots this afternoon coming from outside the box.

We made twenty tackles to Blackburn’s sixteen while the visitors made twenty-five clearances to our twelve. Rotherham conceded sixteen fouls and were shown three yellow cards with our opponents not getting a card from their twelve fouls.

The Millers had been playing well until a mistake led to Blackburn scoring and it was a bit of a blow and I saw our players’ heads go down for a while. But, we fought back, and although I did question the substitution of Chieo Ogbene, who, in my opinion, looked to be getting into the right places to have a shot, the players who came on were excellent – from Wes Harding early in the first half to the triple change with twenty minutes to go. Again it was a team effort and should I have been picking a Man of the Match I’d have found it difficult today.

It’s just got to be a case of ‘keep going, keep going, keep going’ with the Millers having two games to play and our near rivals one it looks very much as though it will go to the wire.