Leam Richardson, the manager of Rotherham United, believed that his bottom-of-the-table Millers team showed “the good, the bad, and the ugly” as they suffered a dramatic 4-3 loss to the Blues at Portman Road.
When Cafu scored a penalty kick in the 94th minute to tie the score at three, the South Yorkshiremen felt they had salvaged an important point. However, a minute later, Omari Hutchinson scored the winning goal for the Blues, moving Town up to third place, one goal behind second-place Leeds on goal differential alone.
“I’m disappointed because I think you saw tonight the good, the bad, and the ugly of who we are and the circumstances that led to where we are right now,” Richardson, who assisted former Town manager Paul Cook at several clubs,
“I feel bad for the players because we put in a lot of work.” We had a great start to the game, in my opinion.
“We had an insane ten minutes; for some reason, we regressed; the first [Ipswich] goal hurt us, and we never fully bounced back; we looked like stunned boxers.”
But after that, I reasoned that we should have gotten something from the game because we had probably played for the last hour.
“It is disappointing for the players because I don’t think many teams come here and dominate all stats, score three goals, and lose the game.”
After taking over in early December after Matty Taylor’s firing, the Millers have taken 19 points from 33 games, although they are still 14 points out of safety.
He said, “I knew the challenge when I came into the situation that we’re in. I knew exactly what we were, what we had, and we want to just give a good account of ourselves every time.”
“Giving up would be simpler. Everyone has an opinion and lives in a society where it is OK to condemn things at particular times, especially after a game.
However, I don’t think anyone should actually decide our fate—rather, we should control it ourselves.
We want to develop as a football team, no matter where we are or what stage we are at. It takes a lot of work off the pitch to keep teams like Ipswich alive and competitive.
Before the penalty, he said, “We spoke about it right away. I felt like we could try and win the game rather than sit [back for the point].”
We saw what that offered us in the first half, so I don’t think we should sit on our laurels.
“We advance, and I believe we had a great chance to go ahead and win the game. However, we made a few poor decisions at that point, and clearly, they went up the other end and scored a poor goal from our [vantage point].” All four of the goals were avoidable and of low quality.
“A fantastic match for the neutral team, but I don’t think anyone predicted that Ipswich would win.
Watford, Hull, and Ipswich have all seen increases in possession, crosses, shots, and other metrics; nonetheless, we have fallen short of their major statistic, which is difficult for them.
“We have 13 really big games for ourselves, and they were on the floor when I came in. I’m trying to lift them off the floor constantly.”
And we’ll aim for a successful outcome if we pick up where we left off this evening on Saturday [against QPR].
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