Rochdale v Doncaster Rovers: Wellens calling for ‘extra five per cent’

Rovers have yet to win back-to-back league matches this term and while sections of supporters are pointing to the lack of financial support at boardroom level as the chief reason for their decidedly average season, Wellens feels the players cannot hide behind that as an excuse.

Urging the players to take responsibility and make things happen, he said: “We still should be higher in the league and five or six points better off and with the games in hand, we can get ourselves into a lot better position.

“But everyone has got to work that little bit harder.

“We have got a small squad and everyone knows the situation that the club is in, so we have got to work that five per cent harder to try and get what we want to achieve.

“There is no point winning one game and then losing one and drawing. If you do that, you are just going to be stuck in the middle of the table and I don’t think anybody wants that.

“We need to find a way of playing where we are more difficult to break down as a team.”

On his own form, he said: “It was always going to take a bit of time to get fully fit. The frustrating thing is when you have a couple of bad or mediocre games, people say: ‘Oh, he is not like he used to be.’ But with me, it was exactly the same as with Curtis Main where I did not have a pre-season. Now I am getting up and running, I will be fine.”

Rovers’ first visit to Spotland in just over a decade should provoke happy memories for the club’s more seasoned fans, with the 25th anniversary of a famous 3-1 win there under the late Billy Bremner, when debutant striker David Jones scored a hat-trick, passing last week.