As Rafa had pointed out more than once in his press conference on Friday Rotherham United are a much better team than their position in the table would suggest and they gave Newcastle everything we could handle yesterday.
Rotherham had a few chances near the end and it could have easily ended up as a 1-1 draw as it did last Saturday at Villa Park but we held out for what was an important win.
Rafa Benitez at Rotherham yesterday
And it was a stunning goal from 42 times capped (9 goals) Ghanaian International Christian Atsu that got us all three vital points yesterday.
Here’s Rafa’s quick analysis of the game:
“They started with high intensity and pressed really high.” “It was difficult for us to keep the ball and pass the ball.”
“The impression of the game was that they were pushing from throw-ins and corners.” “They were dangerous.”
“If you analyse the stats they had 10 shots and we had 20.” “We did what we had to do, defend and pass the ball.”
“We had to play the counter attack when he had to do it.” “It was a difficult game against a good team but we did what we had to do.”
Now the lads deserve their two week break – the non-Internationals that is – and then we start again on October 15th at home to Brentford.
This next set of game until the next International break will be (only) 5 league games and one EFL Cup game in 22 days – 6 games in 22 days.
That’s one game less than the 7 games we have played in the last 22 days since we started up on October 5th at Derby County.
It should be a breeze.
🙂
Note that this kind of schedule is what we would have if we get back into the Premier League and then get back into Europe.
Here’s hoping.
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4 comments so far
Jib
Oct 2, 2016 at 8:27 AM
Comment #1It looks as if the next couple of weeks internationals had quite an effect on Rafa’s selection for Rotherham !
M’Bemba – DRCongo
Sels – Belgium
Hanley and Ritchie – Scotland
Murphy – Ireland
Lazaar – Morroco
Mitrovic – Serbia
Tioté – Cote d’Ivoire
None of these started the game.
The only position where there was 2 internationals competing was right back.
Anita needed game time after his ban and DeAndre Yedlin has to be in Cuba next Friday for the USA (he’s probably already across the Atlantic)
Goofy
Oct 2, 2016 at 8:29 AM
Comment #2Scrappy win but 3 points is 3 points.
On paper we should be thrashing the likes of Rotherham, seems a lot harder in reality. We are the team that all the clubs are licking their lips at the chance of a big scalp.
If the players go onto the park with the same mentality as some of our fans “it’s only Rotherham, an easy 3 points today lads” we’d lose a lot more.
We done enough to keep the heat on the top teams, that’ll do for me. Hwtl
sparky55
Oct 2, 2016 at 8:41 AM
Comment #3Horrible gritty game with 2 flashes of brilliance…but’s that’s the nature of the championship.
Due to the fact we have a number of higher level Championship / Premiership quality players who can actually play a bit I think there’ll be a lot of teams who’ll adopt the high press tactic like Celtic did against Man City and how Rotherham did against us and we’ll end up with loads of possession but no room to play football.
It will never be pretty away from home (QPR will be a one-off) and gritty away football like this will unfortunately be our staple diet…but who cares…a wins a win and momentum is key
Jib
Oct 2, 2016 at 8:42 AM
Comment #4If Stoke City can win a point at Old Trafford the mackems go bottom of the PL
😀