Rotherham Fans Verdict: A Royal Collapse At The New York Stadium

Well, that was tortuous wasn’t it? A good win against Cardiff City and - even though I know it has nothing to do with results on the pitch - a straight-talking fans forum with Paul Ince, Mark Bowen and Alex Rae during the week had the fans in a positive mood in the run-up to Rotherham. Well, within 45 minutes, that good mood had been well and truly extinguished by a shambolic first-half display, even by our low, low standards.

From the first whistle, we just weren’t at the races and we got punished for costly mistake after costly mistake. Joe Lumley will of course get the headlines, but the 10 players in front of him didn’t help him one bit, particularly the central defenders.

As Ince said after the game, we were weak and got bullied, and despite a tad improvement (and tad is being very generous) the damage was done in the first half.

The fans were fuming, and rightly so. In that first half we were let down. Here’s the key talking points...

Joe Lumley

I feel bad including Lumley in this, but I just had to. I feel bad because, yes he made three dearly costly errors, but the worst bit for him would more than likely be the aftermath of the game scrolling through social media.

Some of the abuse being directed at him during the game and on Twitter afterwards was just ridiculous - and no way to improve a player’s confidence after a streak of errors. It was good to see the vast majority of fans at the game get behind the ‘keeper.

After the first error, his head just went, didn’t it? Mentally he was gone and that led to the next two goals. Here’s what the fans had to say about him...

The defence

Like I said, Lumley wasn’t the only thing wrong with Saturday. The defence got ran absolutely ragged in that opening 45. Twice we got done by one easy ball over the top and too many times McIntyre or Holmes got bullied in the air.

There are clearly good players in TMc and Holmes, but ever since they joined up with the first team, they’ve been apart of teams that crumble far, far too easily - which would’ve done no good for their mentalities. Naby Sarr and Sam Hutchinson are needed in this team ASAP.

Here’s what the fans had to say after witnessing another woeful defensive display...

Conceding another early goal

Paul Ince said it himself after the game: we do not have the squad to be able to keep coming back and winning games - especially considering how bad we are at it with a full squad - so the fact we’ve now conceded in the first 10 minutes of every game so far this season is seriously worrying.

It’s a trait that needs to be wiped out quickly. And the fans know it - they were fuming after seeing their team concede yet another early goal...

Conclusion

A day to forget, immediately. I don’t whether it’s good or bad that we have a game on Wednesday, considering the amount of injuries we’ve got and the fact that Blackburn Rovers have won three out of three in the league so far, but it does give us a chance to put things right quickly.

It is so important we get at least a positive performance on Wednesday. I fear the atmosphere around the club will downward spiral very quickly if we start to see more of Saturday too often.

URZ