Wood wants Millers to be 'horrible' in scrap for points

Following Saturday’s 1-0 home defeat to Reading in new manager Kenny Jackett’s first game at the helm, Wood has called for his team mates to ‘grind results out’ and ‘be horrible to play against’.

Thirty-one-year-old Wood spent much of the last few months out of the Rotherham squad under former manager Alan Stubbs, but was recalled to the starting line-up at the weekend for Jackett’s first match in charge, putting in a man of the match performance.

And although that was a successive seventh defeat for the Millers – equalling an unwanted record from the 61/62 season – Wood knows what needs to change if Rotherham are going to be a Championship club again next season.

He said: “We’re the bottom of the league at the moment so we need to grind results out, be horrible to play against and pick up points where we can.

“We haven’t got the budget and players like the teams at the top of the league, we realise who we are and we’ve got to work hard and have a bit of passion.

“We’ve got to grind results out and I think that’s where we are at the moment.”

Wood is pleased with the impact new boss Jackett has had on the squad, despite the former Wolves and Swansea manager taking just one training session before Saturday's defeat.

WOOD ALMOST GIVES THE MILLERS THE LEAD WITH A POWERFUL HEADER IN READING DEFEAT

Wood said: “He (Jackett) has been very good, he’s been very positive and he just wants to get back to how Rotherham have been over the last couple of years with a lot of passion and being hard to beat.

“He wants to make the New York a horrible place to come, make it intimidating for the opposite team and he’s been very direct with us, very up-front.

“He’s come in and said all the right things, that the fans and the club want to hear straight away and that’s the same as he has said to us as well. I think he’s looked at last season and the run we had and what Rotherham needs to be.

“I’m expecting a lot of hard-work in training, we need to stop conceding goals because we have conceded far too many this season, so I’m expecting us to be working, working, working to nail everything down.

“I’m looking forward to it because I’m playing, I want to carry on. The lads want to win games as much as the fans so whatever way we can get results we’ll put the work in to do it.”

There's much more from Richard Wood and Kenny Jackett in this Friday's Advertiser.