Charlton Athletic v Rotherham United: Next hurdle is bigger now Millers are up and running

Last week's 2-1 win against Huddersfield Town, clinched with a brilliant 90th-minute goal by Mallik Wilks, was important.

After impressive recruitment and with the history both of manager Evans and his club in this division, hopes were high for this season, but Rotherham began with three scoreless League One matches, then fell behind to a Joe Hodge goal last week.

The initial results may have been deceptive but on the back of a relegation, there was a doubt that needed shifting. Evans insists his players did not share it.

“I’ve been at the top of the league after four or five games not playing well, scraping a win, scraping a decision and I’ve always been able to sit back and say to the coaching staff, Paul [Raynor] in particular, 'This will not continue because we can't keep scraping a 1-0 win or last-minute equaliser,’” says Evans, in his second spell at the club. “But when you’re playing really well and you’re not winning, you have to believe that will turn. We knew if we turned up against Huddersfield and played as well as we did against Bristol Rovers for all bar the first 10 minutes, we’d got a real chance of winning again.

“I think the supporters all expected us to start better than we did. That’s the expectations created by the signings, created by myself.

“We know we didn’t start anywhere near the points return that we had to deliver.

“We’ve had minimal poor performances in that period. Anyone who went to Wycombe would have been saying on the way home we’d lost 2-0 and it looked [from the outside] like we weren’t in the game but that was a travesty.

“Against Bristol Rovers, they’d have seen what we were about and we carried that forward.

“For confidence within the playing group, the win was massive because I think you realise you can't as a team play continually well but not win, you have to get your points and win games – managers, players, coaching staff.” But last week’s win was at the New York Stadium. A trip to The Valley to face former Premier League opposition is a different matter.

Rotherham’s last away win in any competition was about as close to home as possible, at Sheffield United, in November 2022.

“We have to turn up at The Valley and produce a Huddersfield-type performance to have any chance of coming away with a point,” warns Evans.

“We’re going to a team that's got nine [points] out of 12, that's got two great wins at home – Leyton Orient and Bolton, and who lost unluckily to Bolton in the cup.

“Their fans will turn up expecting three points. We have to be the team that stops them."

As with most footballing situations, Evans has been here before. Sort of.

“I joined Leeds United [in 2015] and they hadn't won a home game for seven months,” he adds.

“We know for us to compete at the high end of the league and fight for the play-offs we have to win some away games and it will come if we produce a very similar performance at Charlton to what we did at Wycombe for 75 minutes.

“We’ll settle for another performance like that, the difference is with a finish on the end of it because we look as if we’ve got multiple players who can score a goal.”