No rest for Rotherham United's squad under Lee Clark
ROTHERHAM United's players are clocking on for double shifts at their training base as boss Lee Clark tries to spark a quickfire revival and lead his new club out of League One's drop zone.
The League One Millers are without a match for a fortnight because of the international break and the 53-year-old is using the time away from third-tier action to make his mark following his March 18 appointment.
The first-team squad are being put through their paces at Roundwood in the morning and then heading back outside in the afternoon for extra workouts.
With less than six weeks of the season left, Clark isn't seeking to boost the running power of his men. However, he believes he can make them sharper in other ways in his bid to and give them a fighting chance of avoiding dropping into League Two for the first time since then 2012/13 campaign.
“It's technical work and tactical work,” he said. “The bottom line is, their fitness is their fitness. You're not going to change that now. A couple of sessions of running isn't going to improve the fitness to the levels where you think you might want them to be.”
The new manager believes the two-week lull has come at the perfect time as Rotherham gear up for seven games in April - starting with the Good Friday visit of Stevenage - and the last-day May 2 trip to Wycombe Wanderers.
“It's a godsend,” he said. “I'm really looking forward to all the sessions with the group and going from there. It gives me chance to start learning about the characteristics of the players.”
Clark was famously competitive as a Premier League midfielder with Newcastle United, Sunderland and Fulham and wants to see the same quality in his new charges.
“We have to give the fans every last drop of work ethic and sweat we've got,” he said. “That's the way I'll do it. There'll be no stone unturned as we try to get those points required to keep the club in the division.
“If I didn't have total belief that we could do it, why would I make the decision to come here?”
The Millers are in 22nd spot, six points from safety and with an inferior goal difference to all of the teams above them.
They could slip even further into trouble if 20th-placed Exeter City pick up a positive result at home to Leyton Orient tomorrow.
Meanwhile, Rotherham’s Ar’Jany Martha was on the bench for Curacao as the World-Cup-bound nation went down 2-0 to China in a friendly in Sydney, Australia, today.