Paul Warne post Nottingham Forest...
MILLERS interim manager Paul Warne admitted that the first goal was all-important as his side suffered a two-goal reversal at the hands of Nottingham Forest.
Britt Assambalonga’s second-half brace, including an early spot-kick after he was felled in the box by visitors’ skipper Richard Wood, saw the Millers fall to another away loss, despite, arguably, having the best of the first 45 minutes at The City Ground.
Speaking afterwards, Warne was left to rue his side’s failure to take the first-half lead against Gary Brazil’s men, who had struggled to find their rhythm during a lacklustre opening period.
“I don’t think there was a lot in the game and if we would have scored the first goal, then the game may have gone the other way,” Warne bemoaned.
“I’m hugely disappointed as I wanted to get our away form going. I thought there wasn’t much in the game in the first half. I thought we edged it slightly and we contained them well in the first half.
“At half time, I asked the lads to move the ball quicker and you’ll be able to create things but we moved the ball slowly and lost possession, which culminates in the penalty for them to go one-nil up and that was a bitter pill to swallow.
“It gave the home side a massive boost when they were not playing that well and it gives my lads a huge kick in the teeth.”
Despite falling behind, Warne conceded that the game arguably swung in the space of a few second-half minutes as Forest were indebted to ‘keeper Stephen Henderson for denying Danny Ward with a top-drawer save before Assombalonga doubled Forest’s lead with a predatory strike following good work by Ben Osborn and Jamie Ward.
“I thought after the first goal that we gave it a good go,” Warne added.
“Wardy had a good chance and it could have gone in but the second goal was a big blow for my lads and the heads dropped a little bit.
“I did everything I could to get us a point and give something for our fans to cheer about but it wasn’t the case.”
Despite the nature of the scoreline in Nottinghamshire, Warne was quick to praise the impact of centre-half Semi Ajayi, who impressed on his Millers’ debut.
“I was really pleased with Ajayi,” Warne enthused.
“I thought he had a really good debut. He won his headers and he put it in the channel, like what I asked him to do. I thought he played really well.”