Rotherham United’s first game of the season saw them get an away win at the Cherry Red Records Stadium against AFC Wimbledon.
The Millers took the lead on twenty-nine minutes and, to be honest, could have scored before that and probably should have had the game in the bag at the end of the first forty-five minutes. What was said at half-time we probably shall never know but it was quite obvious to the seven hundred and fifty travelling fans which of the teams had had a ‘bomb up their backsides’ with the hosts coming out much the better team in the second-half. But, a probably fortuitous second-half goal from Clark Robertson adding to Freddie Ladapo’s first-half effort gave the visitors all three points – and very welcome they are too.
We looked quite slick in the first forty-five minutes – passing the ball, hustling and bustling, making good runs with the only thing not quite there being the end product. I know I said this a lot last season but any chances you get you have to make the goalkeeper react – and, actually, Nik Tzanev did bring off a couple of very good saves but there were times when we made it much too easy for him to collect the ball.
The Millers had more possession throughout the game – most of that surely coming in the first-half – we were better in the air and won more duels on the ground while our passing accuracy comes out at sixty percent (again, I think more for the first-half performance). The stats tell us that we had fourteen shots at goal of which eight were on target, to the Dons’ eleven shots at which only one, the goal, was on target.
All in all those stats look good – and we won and you can’t really ask more than that away from home can you?
The Cherry Red Records Stadium
League One
3/08/2019 4:00 pm
Attendance: 4657
Referee: B Huxtable
| AFC Wimbledon | Rotherham United | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Piggot (50) | Ladapo (29), Robertson (84) | ||||||
| Tzanev | Iversen | ||||||
| McDonald | Olosunde | ||||||
| Kalambayi | Mattock | ||||||
| Thomas ( Appiah 86) | Ihiekwe | ||||||
| O'Neill | Robertson | ||||||
| Guinness-Walker | MacDonald | ||||||
| Hartigan (McLoughlin 80) | Barlaser (Wiles 69) | ||||||
| Reilly | Crooks | ||||||
| Nightingale | Smith | ||||||
| Pigott | Vassell (Morris 75) | ||||||
| Folivi (Connolly 83) | Ladapo (Proctor 84) | ||||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| McDonnell | Price | ||||||
| Connolly | Southern-Cooper | ||||||
| McLoughlin | Wood | ||||||
| Pinnock | Lindsay | ||||||
| Rudoni | Wiles | ||||||
| Wagstaff | Morris | ||||||
| Appiah | Proctor | ||||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 11 | Goal attempts | 14 |
| 1 | On Target | 8 |
| 4 | Corners | 4 |
| 16 | Fouls | 12 |
| 1 | Yellow Cards | 0 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 44 | % | 56 |