One game at a time is an over-used mantra in football and across all sports, but Rotherham United manager Matt Hamshaw has been forced to break protocol this week.

For the fixture list has presented a challenge.

On Wednesday night, Rotherham hosted Blackpool in League One. On Saturday they are away at Plymouth.

The length of the journey to Devon means that Hamshaw has barely had anytime on the training ground between the games to prepare his team for struggling Argyle, so instead he used the eight days Rotherham had between their Vertu Trophy knockout game a week last Tuesday and the Blackpool game, to prepare for both games at once.

Rotherham's Sam Nombe could make his return from injury at Harrogate Town (Picture: Jonathan Gawthorpe)

placeholder image — Rotherham's Sam Nombe could make his return from injury at Harrogate Town (Picture: Jonathan Gawthorpe)

“You have to look at them together because you can’t think you’re going to train exactly as you have done in the build-up to Saturday as you have for Wednesday,” said Hamshaw.

“All we can really do is some recovery work on Thursday.

“So prior to that, some of the things we’ve done in the break before Blackpool was mirror your sessions into one; this’ll be Wednesday, this’ll be Saturday, little gentle reminders.

“Subliminally for a lot of the players, they might not know why they’re doing certain things but they’ll realise why when it comes to the video analysis. There’s loads of different ways you can get messages into players nowadays.

“Blackpool and Plymouth are two teams with different shapes, different strengths and weaknesses but it’s how we apply ourselves.

“This fixture does make life harder. Blackpool playing Sunday knocked us back a day to Wednesday night. That might not become an issue, were it not for the fact we’re at Plymouth on Saturday.

“As much as you try and play it down, the travel is an issue - when can we travel, do we train on the way down, do we go the night before? There’s loads of planning that goes into it.

“You also have to take into account the effect it has after, the Sunday, Monday with the journey back.”

A cynic would question what preparation Rotherham put into the Blackpool game, given they conceded inside 90 seconds, were two down after 18 minutes and ultimately lost 3-0.

But there needs to be context: it was Rotherham’s first defeat in the league since late September.

Nevertheless, Hamshaw will be demanding a response after being left at his “lowest ebb at home”.

Plymouth, like Blackpool, are struggling in League One, although they did win at Wycombe on Tuesday.

“They’re going through a difficult period,” said Hamshaw.

“I love going to Plymouth, I love the stadium when you get there, the fans make it loud. I remember the one against Liverpool last year when the town was going mental.

“But that home crowd can be a negative as well, especially when they’ve had some good times down there recently.”

Striker Sam Nombe (inset) is in contention to return. Josh Benson is a doubt after injuring his cheek on Wednesday.