Warne ‘We Probably Trained Too Hard’

Rotherham United Manager Paul Warne admits that he thinks he made some mistakes this week.

Speaking to Radio Sheffield after going back to the top of the league thanks to a home win over Bolton Wanderers the Millers Boss said, he trained the players three days ‘on the spin’ which he never does. ‘I think we probably trained too hard on soft pitches, and that’s my fault.

‘I didn’t think we were at our best today against a very good Bolton team who defended our set-pieces really well. I thought the first half was pretty even, although I’m disappointed about the goal we conceded.

‘I thought it was a bit more like us in the second half and got the lead. But in those last two minutes we could have lost it, could have drawn it but managed to win it. Our game management in the last five minutes wasn’t great. I stand here as a lucky manager today because we’ve won when we could have drawn.’

I don’t think we started the game that well, our crossing, particularly in the first half wasn’t at it’s best and, even I know, when you are defending a corner if you don’t leave any players out towards the half-way line when the ball is cleared it’s going to come straight back into the area. Why we insist on doing this I will never understand, but then, I’m not the manager.

Talking about Michael Smith who scored both the Rotherham goals in the two-one win this afternoon, Warne said, ‘I didn’t think Smudge had his best game today. But yes, he got two good goals, I thought the second one was excellent. I thought we put enough good crosses in today from Shane (Ferguson) and Chieo (Ogbene) to win the game.

‘It’s like the picture has gone a little bit. We just did enough, with a little bit of lady luck, today. And fair play to Bolton who did everything they could to stop us.’

News on Mickel Miller who didn’t make the squad today is that he’s out for about seven days with a hamstring ‘tweak’.