Steve Evans lays 'a bit of toffee' - but Rotherham United are devoured: final word on Millers' League One home humbling to Birmingham City
AN ESCAPED capybara called Cinnamon may have been caught after nearly a week on the run in the Midlands, but stopping Birmingham City will be another matter entirely.
In a week which saw the Brady bunch outclass Wrexham, the only side who are showing signs of keeping pace with them - for the time being - and Rotherham United, the team everyone is talking about look firmly in the mood for a lot more fun and adventure at League One’s expense.
A chant of ‘We’re gonna win the league’ arrived just 17 minutes in from Birmingham's symphony orchestra, enjoying themselves and basking in the sunshine in the away end after an opener from the elegant Tomoki Iwata. It may only be September, but it’s not presumptuous.
Steve Evans tried his best beforehand by ‘laying a bit of toffee’ as Liverpool icon Bob Paisley used to call it. Namely, flattering an opponent to hopefully give them an inflated opinion of themselves and encourage a touch of complacency.
In truth, there was enough toffee to keep Cadbury’s - another Birmingham institution - busy at Bournville.
Evans rated Blues as the best third-tier side he had ever seen, labelling them as a team of ‘Galacticos’ and ‘Real Birmingham’, while predicting that they would reach a century of points.
Following Saturday’s events, Evans’ gushing words seemed right on the money, in fairness. And unfortunately for his sake, there was no hubris among any Blues players who had chosen to read his comments.
After the game, he said: "We were well beaten. They are a £25 million team with wages to match. But I'm not coming in here to make excuses.
"Our season will not be defined by our games against Birmingham. I said on Monday that they're a team capable of 100 points. That was further endorsed. We've learned lots of lessons."
Defeat to a Blues side who effectively look like being ‘on loan’ in League One for a season was perhaps not unexpected, given the guns at their disposal.
What was disappointing - and disconcerting - was the fact that the Millers, in their own home, didn't lay a glove on their opponents, who were without their defensive leader in Krystian Bielik.
The only time they got in the visitors’ faces and disrupted them was early on. It didn’t last. The classy Iwata soon started to settle and was running the game before the mid-way point of the first half, while wingers Willum Willumsson and Emil Hansson popped up all over the place.
Rotherham couldn’t get near them, to be honest. Birmingham’s football was from the digital age and the Millers were stuck in analogue.
It was hard going at the back and the Millers were also cowed in midfield and badly missed the authority, nous and poise of Liam Kelly.
Further forward, the hosts’ front three barely got a kick and Rotherham's only effort on target all game was a glancing header from Jamie McCart.
After Iwata’s crisp opener, a clinical angled low drive after Jay Stansfield’s shot was blocked with the midfielder given too much space, Blues’ £15m man got in on the act. Willumsson’s probing pass picked him out down the right and his dink over the advancing Dillon Phillips was delightful. ‘What a waste of money’ was the ironic chorus from the Blues punters.
A good reaction save from Phillips prevented Hansson from adding a third before the interval and it already looked like damage limitation.
United, whose only semblance of threat came from the odd set-piece, switched to a back four at half-time and stiffened up midfield, but the game was done.
For the hosts and Evans, it was like being caught between a rock and a hard place. If they’d had a real go and thrown bodies forward, the likelihood of them being surgically picked off on the break was pretty high and Evans knew it. He was still entitled to want a bit more from his offensive and creative players.
On the day, the closest that Jonson Clarke-Harris came to scoring was when he charged out from a free-kick and made contact with Alex Cochrane’s late effort, which deflected onto the crossbar in a second half when Blues were in a comfort zone.
Rotherham United: Phillips; Rafferty, Humphreys (Powell 46), Raggett, McCart, James (Bramall 73); Tiehi (Hugill 74), Odoffin, Wilks (Hungbo 74); Nombe, Clarke-Harris. Unused substitutes: Dawson, MacDonald, Holmes.
Birmingham City: Peacock-Farrell; Gardner-Hickman, Klarer, Davies, Cochrane; Iwata (Leonard 89), Paik; Willumsson, Stansfield (May 79), Hansson (Anderson 62); Dykes (Wright 62). Unused substitutes: Allsop, Sampsted, Yokoyama.
Referee: E Duckworth (Lancs).