After a two-nil loss to Barnsley at Oakwell yesterday night, Rotherham United manager Steve Evans could appreciate the supporters’ annoyance with the players.
Among other things, the three thousand Millers supporters in the stadium were heard yelling at their own manager, “You’re getting sacked in the morning,” and “You’re not fit to wear the shirt.”
“In the end, supporters are the ones who pay your wages, so I’m not one to criticise them,” he said on Radio Sheffield. To be fair, I believe it’s a little bit of a relapse from last week. After the first twenty minutes, during which we had performed admirably, they were still allowing us a little time at halftime. However, I will never treat a Rotherham United supporter disrespectfully since I will always adore this team
I depart from this world. They can be certain that I will be more hurt than everyone else and that I won’t sleep when I get home tonight.
‘I’m the manager and take the acclaim when it’s good for you and you know we’re in South Yorkshire and you know you’re going to get a bit when they aren’t happy with what they’re watching. Given that we have started the season in this fashion I think if we’d taken care of last week there would have been less of a reaction tonight. But the fans are entitled to be critical because of the way we played sixty per cent of the game.’
Talking about the game he said, ‘Again, we started well and for the first twenty minutes we were pressing them, being creative, getting into their final third with ease and the Millers support were on their feet because they were seeing a real good performance.’
Ed Note – I can’t disagree much with that statement, although twenty minutes is pushing it a bit, I’d say fifteen at the most. But we were pressing and the passing was spot on. It was the next seventy-five minutes I take issue with.
Asked why he thinks things changed, Evans said, ‘It was one or two players changing the way we’d set up as a team to play and started to do things differently. All of a sudden we are trying to take people on at the edge of the box, giving the ball away and the corner we conceded from came from us giving the ball away with some sloppy play.
‘We concede a goal from the set-play where we got out-muscled and from then until half-time it was difficult for us. Cameron Dawson made a good save to keep it at one-nil going into the break where we had to opportunity to change it by putting a bit of flare and pace on the pitch. We changed it again after another ten minutes bringing Jack (Holmes) on and for fifteen minutes we were really good.
Ed Note – I think in that fifteen minutes was the time when Sam Nombe, our main striker, was having to get back and defend on more than one occassion.
‘But we missed a huge chance,’ the Millers Boss said, ‘and I don’t think the goalkeeper knows anything about it, but we should score. Then we got into a bit of a ground-hog situation and a defensive mistake and a really good finish makes it two-nil. From there on we are chasing shadows.
‘But Barnsley were the better team and deserved to beat us, though two-nil is probably a harsh scoreline. Goals change games and it probably should have been one-one.
‘The boys have two or three days off now and we get back on the training ground on Monday. A lot of players have played a lot of football and we need some of our big signings to be available to us. If we are here with a (Mallik) Wilks, a (Jonson) Clarke-Harris it would have put a different fear into the Barnsley players.’
Ed Note – I have to admit that I was sorry Mallik Wilks couldn’t play tonight but we aren’t the only team to be missing ‘big’ players. It just seems, to me, that some of our ‘big players’ take a lot longer to get fit than some ‘big players’ from other clubs.
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