Rotherham United Manager Paul Warne told iFOLLOW that the downside of promotion has hit in pre-season because some of the teams that were lined up to play at the New York Stadium were Championship sides which, of course, now won’t be happening.
‘From a commercial point of view that’s not great,’ Warney said, ‘but I don’t really mind who we play in pre-season.’
To me that means that our manager, like a lot of us fans, didn’t think we’d get promoted at the end of last season but was looking to push his players by playing higher based clubs.
You can understand that the teams who we will be playing in the Championship don’t want to play us in pre-season and vice-versa but we have got Cardiff City, who got promoted to the Premier League coming to town.
And, let’s be honest, what are pre-season friendlies all about? It’s about getting competitive games into the players and minutes of the pitch to bring their fitness up. It doesn’t matter if you win, lose or draw it’s just getting the lads back to business after a break.
The club are going to Austria and will be playing a couple of games there, though these are yet to be announced and we have a handful of away games against local non-league sides as well as a trip to Field Mill to take on Mansfield Town.
Pre-season Friendlies
Saturday 7th July – Parkgate (A) – 1pm
Tuesday 17th July* – Sheffield FC (A) – 7.30pm
Tuesday 17th July* – Stocksbridge Park Steels (A) – 7.30pm
Wednesday 25th July – Cardiff City (H) – 7.45pm
Saturday 28th July – Mansfield Town (A) – 3pm
* Paul Warne will be sending a team to each game with first team members being in both teams