Matt Hamshaw on *those* second-half Rotherham United substitutions
MANAGER Matt Hamshaw has his fingers crossed that all of the Rotherham United players he was forced to bring off today have escaped any long-term problems.
The boss had to make a quartet of second-half substitutions when his League One team was leading 1-0 against AFC Wimbledon 1-0 at AESSEAL New York Stadium and the changes were a key factor in the visitors fighting back for a 1-1 draw.
Striker Sam Nombe departed proceedings along with midfielder Kian Spence, wing-back Marvin Kaleta and centre-forward Harry Gray as the Millers ended a run of eight straight losses.
All bar the latter have made recent returns from injury while teenage Leeds United loanee Gray was ill in the run-up to his home debut.
Speaking about Nombe, Spence and Kaleta, Hamshaw said: "It was just cramping up. Look, I'm having to manage people's minutes, and I think that was evident today.
"I'm starting them and them coming off is going to happen because they're one or two weeks off match fitness and sharpness.
"Sam had a good partner up there in Harry. I just felt that Harry was getting latched on to their centre-backs a bit much and should have come off them and not had that battle. He's not going to win that battle at 17.
"They're the bits that he'll learn. He came off the defenders and got in those pockets, then you just saw him fatigue a little bit at the end."
The boss hopes that all four will be fit for the crunch clash with Northampton Town at New York on Tuesday when his drop-zone side desperately need to put a first win since December 2 on the board in their fight for survival.
The half-time withdrawal of midfield man Dru Yearwood in favour of attacker Ar’Jany Martha was relatively inconsequential and didn’t affect the outcome of the game in the way that the later raft of replacements did.
Rotherham edged a goalless first half and then took a 50th-minute lead through Zak Jules. They had enough chances to widen their margin of superiority and paid the price for not doing so when the visitors scored an 82nd-minute equaliser through Marcus Browne.
"The lads have been on a bad run, so the confidence is a little bit low," Hamshaw said. "A few things happened before half-time - the ball running under people's feet, people not having a touch when they should have had a touch.
"Then, in that period in the second half, we get a goal and the confidence comes back. It happened at Stockport County the previous week.
"It's okay for me to tell the players to do X, Y and Z, but they have to believe it and feel it. It's been a tough run. The positive is, it's a point. The negative is, it should have been a win."
New centre-half signing Emmanuel Adegboyega could see action in a Millers shirt for the first time on Tuesday following his arrival from Norwich City yesterday in a permanent move.