The Local Lowdown: Rotherham United
We asked opposition expert Paul Davis, Rotherham United reporter for the Rotherham Advertiser, to preview Saturday's game from the visitors’ point of view…
Having bounced between the Championship and League One in recent years, how impressive was last season’s survival season?
Rotherham have been a yo-yo club for six years, they either went up from League One or came down from the Championship, so to be able to stay in the Championship was absolutely huge.
What you have to remember with Rotherham is they shouldn’t actually be in the Championship – they’re punching above their weight for the size of club they are, so it’s a magnificent achievement just to have been there as often as they have in the last decade or so.
Last season they managed to stay up because Paul Warne laid some good foundations and Matt Taylor carried on that good work. Just to get a foothold in the second tier is huge for them; it shows they can stay there, it’s brilliant for belief and confidence, but it’s also good for recruitment because it tells players that they have a chance of playing regular Championship football if they sign for Rotherham, so they can sign better players, which increases their chances of staying in that higher level in future years.
Manager Matt Taylor took charge of Rotherham last October
How does this season’s squad compare to last season, given there were a couple of key departures in the summer?
We lost Dan Barlaser to Middlesbrough in January, then we lost Chiedozie Ogbene to Luton in the Premier League in the summer as well as Ben Wiles, a homegrown midfielder and mainstay of the side for several seasons, to Huddersfield.
The chairman has dug deep in the summer transfer window – there’s been 14 new arrivals and they smashed the transfer record by paying over a million pounds for the first time, on Sam Nombe from Exeter.
We’re spending more on transfer fees and spending more on wages, so we’re attracting better players, and this is the best squad Rotherham have had in the Championship in the decade I’ve been covering the club.
How’s the season going so far?
Where they’ve been really unlucky so far this season is with injuries. Last Saturday we drew 1-1 at home to Preston, who arrived at the New York Stadium in first place, but after that game we were left with eight injuries, losing key centre-half Cameron Humphreys to a long-term hamstring complaint.
Matt Taylor has never been able to pick his best team – the squad has been light on numbers and we’ve not always been able to name a nine-man bench. We’ve got several players due back in the international break, and that’ll almost be like the season beginning again for us when we play Ipswich on October 20th.
At home, they’re strong – they beat Norwich, they ran Leicester really, really close, and would’ve beaten Blackburn apart from having a man sent off in a crazy manner when they were leading 2-0. They look a decent side at home, but away from home it’s not happening for them yet.
New York is a tight pitch and they can get on top of the opposition easier than they can on big pitches at away grounds where there’s more space to chase, so they’ve played five in the league and one in the Carabao Cup away, and lost them all, so the away form is the big talking point at the moment. Every away game for Rotherham in the Championship is a mountain to climb.
Cafú – when fit – has been a key player for the Millers
What do you expect from Saturday's game?
Southampton, with Premier League parachute payments, great pedigree and great players, is as hard an away game as Rotherham are going to have this season. But if Rotherham are going to stay in the division, they’ve got to start getting something at away grounds.
Last season they found a way away from home of staying in games – they only won two, but they got 11 draws, getting clean sheets, and those 11 points were important at the end of the season.
Who should Saints be wary of?
We’ve signed the ex-Forest midfielder Cafú, the Portuguese playmaker, and he’s an absolute class act. He gives Rotherham some control, some quality from set-pieces, some vision.
We only signed him in the summer and he’d already become a key man, but he suffered a hamstring niggle and missed the last four games. Fingers crossed he’ll be back – he’s not been the only miss, but I’d say he’s been the biggest. Centre-half Grant Hall is due back too.