Rotherham United manager Paul Warne assessed his side’s display after a 2-0 defeat at the hands of Lincoln City this afternoon.
“We came into this game hoping to win,” said Warne. As a game, it wasn’t a great spectacle and the conditions played a major role in that. But we just didn’t take our chances to score when we were on top and got sucker-punched.
“First-half, it was their only attempt on goal and they scored. Then the lads are so keen to do so well for this great club that I think they got overawed with emotion and it affected the way they played.
“I didn’t think we played as well second-half as the first-half. Someone told me we had 17 attempts on goal to their three, but they scored two and we didn’t. Regrettably, it’s disappointing to lose a football match but if we’d have scored a goal when we were on top, the game would have taken a different path.”
Despite controlling the majority of the first-half, the Millers went in a goal down at the break after Shaun MacDonald’s own goal.
The visitors then doubled their lead shortly after the break, with Harry Anderson heading home from a corner.
“The ‘keeper made a great save off Freddie,” he continued. “Robbo had a header that Bostwick headed off the line. At 2-1, it might have been a different story and given the lads a bit more belief. I don’t blame Lincoln for doing this, but they slowed the game down literally to its death. It frustrated our players a bit and when we did get on the ball we weren’t as cool as I would have liked us on it.
“I didn’t think the second-half performance was great and we didn’t make their ‘keeper work hard enough. I wasn’t over the moon with the performance. We didn’t do enough to warrant a draw.
“My systems are limited. Prior to this game, I understand the expectations, but we’ve got players on the pitch players that only play together three of four times. It was going to take time, whatever system we played. Matt Olosunde’s only played one league game, so it’s not like we’ve got the experience of last year. It’s going to take time to gel, if that means we look at other systems, we will. But, at the moment, I thought it was the best way to get our best players on the pitch.
“I asked them to have a look and tell me what they think. I told them what I thought of things. It’s not about systems whether you win a header or not in the box. That’s not tactics, it’s endeavour.
“I just thought that, the peripheral part of the game today wasn’t as good as I would have liked.”