Southend United v Rotherham United - Paul Warne looking for Millers to show some guile

IT was at another seaside venue around this time two years ago where a pivotal moment in the promotion campaign of Rotherham United transpired.
Paul Warne: Says poor home record is putting pressure on away form.Paul Warne: Says poor home record is putting pressure on away form.
Paul Warne: Says poor home record is putting pressure on away form.

That was at Blackpool’s Bloomfield Road and this time around, Millers chief Paul Warne would settle for a relieving success at Roots Hall to provide some semblance of consistency in the club’s vexatious campaign, where away statistics have been strong in contrast to some lamentable home figures.

Addressing the imbalance in results, Warne said: “Apart from the Oxford game, I think that we have won virtually every KPI (key performance indicator), so the lads are doing everything right.

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“But we just don’t seem to have enough guile possibly to break a team down; that is really the thing.

“Our performances away have been good. But we need our home form to improve because it adds pressure to our away form, for sure.”

Today, Rotherham face a Shrimpers side who are the only English Football League still awaiting a home league win this season, suffering a positively disastrous eight defeats in nine matches along the way.

“In fairness, with all the teams at the bottom, you cannot under-estimate them,” said the Millers manager.

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“MK Dons are down there and gave us a right good licking and we drew with Tranmere and lost to Rochdale.

“There is no way we will go into this Southend game thinking: ‘this is going to be a breeze.’

“There is no such thing. Southend are going to go on a run sooner or later as they have some really good players.

“I have gone on the record loads of time and I really like (Tom) Hopper up top for them, I think he is excellent and he works really hard and he has got an eye for a goal.”