Rotherham United Manager Paul Warne must have been as disappointed with today’s performance as the travelling one thousand six hundred were today at the Crown Oil Arena with his telling iFOLLOW that it was ‘an off day’.
And saying that he wasn’t wrong was he.
The Millers Boss made a few changes to the side fetching in Curtis Tilt for the injured Michael Ihiekwe and putting right-back Billy Jones at left-back for Joe Mattock who was also suffering with injury while Adam Thompson was recalled with Matt Olosunde missing out.
And, somehow, it didn’t look right.
I did think for the first twenty minutes or so we were the better side and had some of those missed chances gone in well, it could have been a different story couldn’t it. But they didn’t and it wasn’t.
Speaking after the three-one loss, the Gaffer said, ‘We had a good following here today and they did not deserve to watch that. A few of the lads had an off day which is the nicest way to put it. It summed up our day when Wilsey’s (Ben Wiles) header was going in but Smudge (Michael Smith) touched it and it’s an offside goal.
‘But we haven’t turned into a bad team overnight. We’ve been amazing away from home but it just wasn’t our day.’
Yes, there were too many players having an off day but, to be honest, I think that can be said of the last two or three games. We’ve looked jittery and never controlled the game at Accrington or last weekend at home to MK Dons but have ground out results. There was no grounding out today.
But, saying all that, we are still in second place, still in an automatic promotion place. All we can do now is make sure we don’t lose our next nine games – and to do that we’ve got to play with a confidence that I don’t think was there today.