Rotherham United keeping their cool in promotion race

The 1-0 win over Ipswich Town that returned them to League One’s top two – mostly likely just for a few hours but thanks to Sheffield Wednesday at least a few days – was super-stressful. There are four more to come.

At least if the Millers keep playing like this it will only be four. If.

The ball tucked under his arm as left-sided centre-back Wes Harding trotted to the right touchline to launch a long throw, manager Paul Warne looked a picture of serenity. No one was daft enough to fall for that, though -–not after the last 78 minutes.

“Inside I was an absolute washing machine, my stomach was going around,” he admitted.

Rotherham had been better than Ipswich but there is more to winning than just that.

They were getting closer. They stepped up after the first half, and four minutes earlier Christian Walton had made his one big save of the game, denying Michael Smith with his feet.

At last it was something concrete after Chiedozie Ogbene had just not been able to leap high enough to a Jordi Osei-Tutu cross and Smith’s dive failed to reach Rarmani Edmonds-Green’s ball back in. He did touch Dan Barlaser’s free-kick, but not enough, before Ollie Rathbone sank to his knees when Ogbene’s stretch was unable to make his pass brilliant.

Mikel Miller went off with an apparently season-ending hamstring strain, throwing Warne’s statement reshuffle out of the window after just 23 minutes. The dropped Barlaser was back on, Ogbene wide again after starting at inside-forward in a 3-4-2-1.

Bigger palpitations were to come. With Josh Vickers’s season over, Viktor Johansson is the injury Warne most fears, with third-choice goalkeeper Joe Chapman yet to play senior football.

When Johansson and Sone Aluko went for a loose ball after 65 minutes, both went down for an inordinate amount of time.

Aluko had to be substituted but not Johansson. When he sat down after 75 minutes and called the physio back on, he was seemingly just ramping up the drama.

Michael Ihiekwe did that too, prone after being clattered by James Norwood and again needing a second bout of treatment.

They and others were down so long nine minutes of nail-chewing were added to the game.

Norwood missed a first-half sitter after Wes Burns burst to the byline. After 72 minutes, Johansson denied Burns when Luke Woolfenden dribbled into the penalty area from centre-back.

Fortunately, someone was keeping his cool – so much so that on a day when each second-half injury saw Rotherham’s players drape themselves in cooling wet towels, Smith spoke to the media in a thick touchline jacket.

“Not worried at all,” was his response to both the form which had seen his team take two wins from nine games and how the game panned out. “We know the work we put in on the training ground. We’re a confident group. It’s all outside noise to us.

“We’re always confident we’re going to create chances and keep clean sheets and we’re confident we were going to get a chance.”

It came from Harding’s long throw as Wiles’s blocked shot fell for Mr Cool to tuck away his 25th goal of the season.

“I had one exactly the same in training on Friday and I put it wide,” he grinned.

Not that it ended the tension.

“Whilever the scoreline is 1-0 you are just never sure,” admitted Mr Stressed.

In the 90th minute, Wiles went down injured.

“Jordi was struggling,” explained Warne. “We told him to go down so we could replace him but he doesn’t and then Wilesy does. Holy hell, that’s a disaster!

“Wilesy has to come off the pitch and we’re down to 10 men until he comes back on. I’m thinking: ‘If Ipswich score from this corner it will haunt me until I die,’ which could have been about 10 minutes after that!”

Smith could have settled matters twice in stoppage time but floated a shot beyond the far corner then headed over, so Rotherham had to rely on a club record 26th clean sheet this season.

Recognising their job, the fans who cheered and hugged at the sweet release of the final whistle were pumped up from the off.

They even got to Mr Cool.

“Early on we got a corner in front of the kop,” said Smith. “I looked up into the stand, heard the noise and got goosepimples.”

Defeat doomed Ipswich, like Bolton Wanderers, to another season in League One. Despite the television interviewer’s desperate attempts to play the idea up at Milton Keynes, Wednesday will almost certainly not win automatic promotion, nor Sunderland or Portsmouth.

“It feels massive,” said Mr Stressed before heading home to sleep ahead of an evening trying to avoid scores while out with Richie Barker’s family.

“Every manager I have spoken recently says, ‘Wow, Ipswich have been something else against us!’”

Mr Cool was planning to watch MK Dons versus Wednesday if he could just get his kids bathed and in bed in time.

“It’s the best we’ve played in a long time,” he said. Even at the stage when results are supposed to be all that matters, it mattered.

Wigan Athletic wobbled in the early evening, beaten at home to Cambridge United, and MK were unable to clamber back into second in Suffering Day’s final act.

What little Rotherham are doing – yet again – is remarkable. If Smith really is as calm as he claims to be, that is even more remarkable.