Rotherham United manager Paul Warne was proud of his teams display despite being edged out by Brentford at AESSEAL New York Stadium on Tuesday night.
The Millers more than held their own in a frantic opening 45 minutes, with Matt Crooks going closest to breaking the deadlock for Paul Warne’s men.
Despite the home side forging chances of their own, it was the visitors who were more clinical, with Marcus Forss capitalising to give the Bees the opener in a tight encounter, before Ivan Toney put gloss on the scoreline, as the Millers pressed for a way back into the game.
“I haven’t got too many complaints, I know defeats always sting but I was asking the lads to tank out, we were carrying injuries and massive fatigue from the weekend,” Warne explained.
“I thought in the first half we were excellent, we were as competitive as we could be, we just didn’t create enough clear-cut chances to take the lead but I thought we were the team in the ascendency.
“They were the better team in the second half and their first goal was a good move. We took the two wing-backs off and put more attacking wide-men on in Flo (Jozefzoon) and Mickel (Miller) to try and get back in the game but gone done with the sucker punch.
“That doesn’t detract from how proud I am of our performance and how we took the game to a top team like we did on Saturday. I was really pleased we came out of it injury free and we have Icky (Michael Ihiekwe) back ahead of the weekend.
“The games are coming thick and fast, so you have no time to enjoy a win or a draw, but at the same time we don’t have long to dwell on a defeat. I think if that level of performance is what we’re going to get in the next few months we’re going to have a really good season, we just need to go again on Saturday.”
Warne was pleased with a number of performances from his players tonight and reserved special praise for his goalkeeper Jamal Blackman, who the manager believes looked more like himself against the Bees.
“I was really pleased with my goalkeeper, I think he looked a lot more like himself tonight, I thought he was excellent so I was really pleased for him. All players go through ups and downs, so for him to perform like he did was good,” Warne added.