Jamie Lindsay’s combative performances on the field embody his determined personality and after a lengthy-lay off following a hamstring injury sustained at Preston North End in early February, the Scot is more driven than ever to make his mark as Rotherham United look to keep their place in the Sky Bet Championship.
The 25-year-old returned to first team action over the Easter weekend making a substitute appearance at Millwall before featuring in the disappointing defeat to Wycombe more recently, but, whilst the evergreen midfielder will not shy away from the Millers’ recent performances, he is focused on putting things right as they travel to Huddersfield Town this weekend.
"It was a disappointing day [Monday] and everybody knows that,” Lindsay explained.
"It was unexpected because the boys were confident. I hadn't been playing but even coming back into the team, we were confident that we could go and put a performance on and get the three points - obviously that didn't happen.
"The last couple of days have been about picking everybody up because we were all hurt by it. I'm talking about everyone at the club, not just the players, but it is the players who need to take responsibility."
"It is about getting around everybody and trying to be positive until the end of the season.
"If you get beaten 3-0 by anybody it is a sore one to take, but knowing where Wycombe were in relation to ourselves we knew how big a game it was. For us to put on the performance we did, has left the players feeling like we've let people down.”
Paul Warne’s sides have become synonymous for their fight and the ability to harness the motivation that comes with the ‘underdog’ tag with which they have been branded during their stints in the Sky Bet Championship.
Lindsay, who arrived ahead of the club’s League One promotion tilt last season but has experienced the cut and thrust of battling out at the other end of the table with previous club Ross County, insists he and his teammates do not want to be associated with a side whose name appears next to an ‘R’ come the end of the 2020/21 campaign.
"We don't want to be that group of players that are remembered like that."
"We know that we've got 10 massive games and we need to try and put it right.
"What has happened has happened and we need to look forward to Saturday and putting in a performance that we should have on Monday and hopefully that can kickstart us again.
"It will be a kick up the backside for us and we need to go and fight for the last 10 games now.”
One thing that nobody in football – never mind at Rotherham United – is likely to have previous experience of however, is the unrelenting nature of the club’s next week of fixtures.
Warne’s men will play no less than four second tier fixtures in eight days – and some important ones too – as they look to preserve their status in the Sky Bet Championship with the action getting under way with an all-Yorkshire affair at the John Smith’s Stadium.
"We know that we've got a massive week coming up,” Lindsay added.
“We've got four games. It isn't ideal how close they are to each other but we know that if we have a good week, everything changes again."
"When you look at the games, we have to be confident going into them that we can pick up three points.
"In football it can change really, really quickly.
"We need to focus on ourselves, we can't be looking at what other teams are doing. We've looked at Huddersfield and where we can hurt them and hopefully on Saturday we put the performance in that gives us a right good chance to go and win the game.
"Even speaking to some of my mates back in Scotland I've told them about the schedule and they've said 'that can't be right', but again, it is what it is. You never know, we could look back at the end of the season and this week could be the best week of our season."