Rotherham United Manager Paul Warne thought today’s four-two home loss was the teams ‘worst performance of the season’.
Speaking to Radio Sheffield after the game the Millers Boss said, ‘We weren’t at our best today. We looked a bit laboured and when we went in at two-one at half-time I didn’t think our overall play deserved that.’
Now I didn’t think we did too badly in the first half. OK some of our passes went astray and we probably had to defend more than Fleetwood but we were also creating chances.
‘After they scored their second goal then a screaming free-kick,’ Warney carried on, ‘I thought the belief drained out of the lads which is a worry. I think it’s been our worst performance of the season but I still think, though we didn’t play great, we created enough chances to win.
‘I think we got sucked into their pace of the game.’
And I think he’s right. Fleetwood were obviously going to slow things down once they went ahead and it seemed to frustrate our players – it frustrated us in the stands watching – but it’s what teams are going to do and I really think we have to know how to up our game when that happens.
Carrying on Warne said, ‘They (Fleetwood) took their goals really well and we didn’t seem right on song today. Too many players, today, weren’t playing at their best.’
With the Boss saying he didn’t like what he saw in the first half I can’t work out why he didn’t change it for the second half – because he didn’t it just stayed the same – even when the subs came on.
Warne said that Richard Wood wasn’t a substitution he really wanted to make saying the Millers’ skipper had ‘tight calves’ – to be honest that was really the only substitution I understood today. Morton was all over Woody and he couldn’t keep up with him and I, for one, was surprised when someone else hadn’t taken over that job at half-time. Ollie Rathbone, in my opinion, was one of the better players on the pitch and boos rang out when he was subbed and I can’t work out why Will Griggs wasn’t on earlier plus there were a couple of players I wondered how they were still on the pitch at the end.