Rotherham United 1 Middlesbrough 0: Frecklington goal earns derby win

Neil Warnock believes keeping Rotherham up would be his biggest achievement in football by “an absolute mile”.

Warnock guided the Millers to a third straight win with an unlikely 1-0 success over promotion-chasing Middlesbrough which came thanks to Lee Frecklington’s 88th-minute winner.

It was a smash-and-grab win, as Boro missed a plethora of first-half chances, but Warnock did not care one bit as his side moved to within a point of safety.

They followed up wins over Brentford and Sheffield Wednesday to haul themselves back in contention, having looked dead and buried just a fortnight ago when they were six points adrift of safety.

While they are still in the bottom three, Warnock, who is known more for his promotion-winning antics, is in no doubt what safety would mean.

“The best, by an absolute mile,”said Warnock. “Only when you look at the squad and where we were when I came in. We are still in the bottom three after three wins, that shows how far away we were.

“It will be far better. Everybody knows we were dead and gone, we might still be dead and gone but at least we’ve got a chance.”

Warnock also knew his side were lucky to be in it following Middlesbrough’s wastefulness in the first half, but he was not going to turn that down.

“We have got a genuine set of lads, I love lads that put it in like that,” he added. “That was probably against the best team I have seen in the Championship.

“I am enjoying it, the Championship is my thing really. I love the blood and thunder.

“That’s not my fault they missed chances, they were trying to help me out. (David) Nugent had a couple of good ones, you have to take your chances don’t you?

“It’s a great win for us, we have to scrap for everything, the extra two points are a bonus but we kept fighting until the end.”

Aitor Karanka was also sure where this game was lost for his Middlesbrough side as they failed to put Rotherham to the sword in the first half.

Nugent missed two chances that he would have expected to snaffle up while Gaston Ramirez hit the post and fired just wide.

And with Boro out-fought in the second half, those misses were costly.

“We should have won by 4-0 or 5-0 and we have lost three points,” the Boro boss said.

“We should have scored one or two at least and had we scored the game would have been completely different.

“But we didn’t score and we lost the game because we didn’t play in the second half the way we needed to play.

“We are second in the table, we have a really good squad so I am not concerned.

They decided to win, they were fighting for every ball as if it would be the last ball for them. They are fighting to stay in the Championship.”

Rotherham: Camp, Richardson, Broadfoot, Wood, Mattock, Halford, Frecklington, Smallwood, Thomas, Best, Derbyshire. Subs: Danny Ward, Green, Kelly, Grant Ward, Clarke-Harris, Newell, Kenny.

Middlesbrough: Konstantopoulos, Nsue, Fry, Gibson, Friend, Clayton, Forshaw, Stuani, Ramirez, Adomah, Nugent. Subs: Leadbitter, Rhodes, De Pena, De Sart, Downing, Agazzi, Kalas.

Referee: Peter Bankes (Merseyside)

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