Neil Warnock speaks to www.themillers.co.uk...
Rotherham United boss Neil Warnock is keen for his side to remain unbeaten until the end of the 2015/16 Sky Bet Championship campaign, despite securing second tier safety at Wolverhampton Wanderers last weekend.The Millers chief admits he has been delighted with his side, who have embarked upon an 11 game undefeated run to date, but conceded that he would like to extend that impressive string of form until the curtain comes down on the current season.
“Right from day one we wanted to go undefeated on this run and we’ve managed to get to 11 and it would be nice to make it to 13,” Warnock told www.themillers.co.uk.
“Blackburn is our last home game and we don’t want to get beaten at home so it’s important that we’re ready for it.
“With the type of lads that we’ve got and the attitude that we’ve shown, I’m asking for two more pushes.”
The Rotherham United manager is yet to taste defeat on home soil since his arrival and hopes he can preserve that record and subsequently move into the middle of the pack in the second tier.
“It would be nice to finish unbeaten at home but I wish you wouldn’t mention things like that in future because I’m a bit superstitious like that,” Warnock joked.
“We want to make it a fortress and we’ve come up against some really good sides and it would be nice to finish it unbeaten at home.”
“It’s nice isn’t it when you look at some of the big clubs in that group of teams and it would be nice to finish as high as possible and that’s what we’re aiming for.”
Warnock continued to pay tribute to the contribution of the Rotherham United fans since his arrival at the helm at AESSEAL New York Stadium and ranks survival with the Millers highly on his decorated list of achievements in management.
“The crowd are right on top of you and the atmosphere is great and you’ve seen it in some of the games where they’ve really lifted us at the end to keep us going, in the face of adversity when we were down to 10 men against Leeds and against Derby County when we were three goals down,” he continued.
“It’s been an amazing turnaround at times and the fans really deserve to take a lot of credit from that.”
There is also positive news on the injury front for the Millers boss who learned of the success of Joe Newell’s ankle operation earlier in the week. However, Warnock had already prepared for life without the former Peterborough United man who will now be missing for the remainder of the season.
“It’s gone well and we knew about it last week. I wanted to put him on with about 10 or 15 minutes to go, but I thought do I risk upsetting what he was going to have done on Monday and the answer was no.
“It went well, the surgery, otherwise it could have been quite serious for him in years to come and there’s good news on the other lads as well.”
Lloyd Doyley is another player that won’t return to fitness until the close of the 15/16 season but Jerome Thomas is back in contention after missing out at Wolves.
“It won’t be much use to us now but Doyley will start training about a week after the last game so the injuries are quite good. Ledesma has had a little operation and will be okay and they’ve all come at a good time.
“Jerome has trained this week and looked sharp, so he’ll come into the reckoning for Saturday."