We should have more points on the board, says Warne

MILLERS chief Paul Warne is frustrated his team’s points tally isn’t in double figures after the opening six Championship games.
Paul Warne and assistant manager Richie Barker on duty at Wigan. Pictures: DAVE POUCHERPaul Warne and assistant manager Richie Barker on duty at Wigan. Pictures: DAVE POUCHER
Paul Warne and assistant manager Richie Barker on duty at Wigan. Pictures: DAVE POUCHER

James Vaughan’s goal sentenced Rotherham to a 1-0 loss at Wigan and leaves them 15th in the table on six points.

While Warne accepts the first year back in the second tier was never going to be easy, he insists the Millers could easily be going into the two-week international break with a better points cushion.

“You always want more points,” he said. “In my opinion, and I am biased, if we’d played to our best against Hull we would have won and we were more than deserving of a point today. It’s frustrating to me that we could be sitting on ten points and instead we’re sitting on six.”

Warne accepted that Rotherham were second best to Wigan in the first half of a contest that pitched two newly-promoted sides against each other, but he thought the second-half improvement should have produced more.

“It’s no excuse but we got home late from Everton on Wednesday night and we were a little bit jaded today first half,” he said. “It took us a bit of time to get going.

Game over...for injured Sean Raggett at the DW Stadium.

“We were pleased to get them in at 0-0 at half time, Wigan were comfortably the better side without our keeper making any saves I can remember.

“At half time we made our defenders play higher up the pitch to make our midfielders do the same and support Michael Smith and I thought we were the better team. We were pushing and had plenty of set pieces but the ball just wouldn’t drop for us.”

The early prognosis on Sean Raggett, who limped off early on with a suspected knee injury, was “not good." Jon Taylor (groin) is another concern.

Added Warne: “The lads can’t feel sorry for themselves, we have to pick them up and I can do that willingly. I’ve asked them to be students of the game, watch more football and make more comments and collectively we’ll try and improve.”