Charlton Athletic v Rotherham United: Next hurdle is bigger now Millers are up and running
Last week’s 2-1 win against Huddersfield Town, clinched with a brilliant 90th-minute goal by Mallik Wilks, was important.
After impressive recruitment and with the history both of manager Evans and his club in this division, hopes were high for this season, but Rotherham began with three scoreless League One matches, then fell behind to a Joe Hodge goal last week.
The initial results may have been deceptive but on the back of a relegation, there was a doubt that needed shifting. Evans insists his players did not share it.
“I’ve been at the top of the league after four or five games not playing well, scraping a win, scraping a decision and I’ve always been able to sit back and say to the coaching staff, Paul [Raynor] in particular, ‘This will not continue because we can’t keep scraping a 1-0 win or last-minute equaliser,’” says Evans, in his second spell at the club. “But when you’re playing really well and you’re not winning, you have to believe that will turn. We knew if we turned up against Huddersfield and played as well as we did against Bristol Rovers for all bar the first 10 minutes, we’d got a real chance of winning again.
“I think the supporters all expected us to start better than we did. That’s the expectations created by the signings, created by myself.
“We know we didn’t start anywhere near the points return that we had to deliver.
“We’ve had minimal poor performances in that period. Anyone who went to Wycombe would have been saying on the way home we’d lost 2-0 and it looked [from the outside] like we weren’t in the game but that was a travesty.
