Millers manager Paul Warne was left frustrated after a narrow home defeat against Rochdale this afternoon.
Speaking to the press following the game, Warne said, “It wasn’t a bad performance but I won’t lie and say it was it was an excellent performance, either.
“We’ve got a bit of an issue with our home form and I apologise to the fans because they haven’t seen us play at our best. All our best performances have been away from home.
“For 90 minutes I don’t think, individually, we were at our best. A few of the lads had a bit of a lesser day. I haven’t got an excuse for it. I’ve only got reasons in my head which I’ll keep to myself.
“I’m asking the lads to get the ball wide and in the box. Someone told me we put 48 crosses in the box. We seemed to have loads of set-pieces, loads of free-kicks and corners. For whatever reason it didn’t drop for us.”
The opening and winning goal came on 42 minutes as Aaron Morley swept into the top corner from the edge of the box.
“They scored an unbelievable goal,” added Warne. “As soon as he hit it, I thought ‘that’s in’, in a similar part of the pitch the ball fell to Crooksy and the ball’s sent wide. So, sometimes it’s the smallest of margins and it’s a frustrating thing because everyone’s turned up here today with optimism after our recent run and we’re playing a team that are struggling.
“In fairness, the fans stayed which is great of them. We’ve got a really good team here and we’re hugely disappointed with the result.
“We had enough balls in the box. We started okay and as soon as we put a cross in I thought we were going to score. We had the offside goal and I just thought we needed that first goal. We keep saying it and the more you say it, the bigger the issue becomes. It would have settled our nerves.
“We didn’t follow a runner and he’s bent one in from 20 yards. All of a sudden it becomes more pressure. I can’t knock the lads’ effort, you can see how desperate they are to win. I changed the system three times and couldn’t have put any more attacking power on the pitch.
“I didn’t know what more we could do to try and win the game.”
“I’ll watch the game back and have a meeting with the lads at half-seven tonight, once I’ve watched it back in a less emotive state – we’ll pick it apart then. In fairness, I though the outstanding player on the pitch today was their goalkeeper, it wasn’t the fact he made six one-on-one saves, he just came for everything.”