Birmingham 0-2 Rotherham: Steve Evans and Gary Rowett reaction
Saturday 26 September 2015 23:15, UK
Steve Evans has predicted Rotherham will maintain their recent improvement and climb the Championship table after their impressive 2-0 win at Birmingham.
Evans, who has been subjected to criticism following a poor start to the season, was delighted with the way Rotherham accomplished their first back-to-back wins in 18 months and their first victory over Blues since 1989.
The Millers boss was pleased when Matt Derbyshire opened the scoring in the 32nd minute with snappy cross shot to pave the way to the Millers' first away win since March.
The goal by their former player appeared to frustrate Birmingham and they lacked their usual firepower to get back into the game against a Rotherham defence which found some steel to put up a barrier the home side failed to penetrate.
Rotherham sealed the points to take them off the bottom of the table when Tony Andreu, on loan from Norwich, fired in a low angled shot in the 64th minute.
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Evans said: "We set the tone in the first minute and it was all about us. We controlled the game from start to finish.
"We made a bad start to the season with a 4-1 opening-day defeat to MK Dons. We now have our best players back and this has been shown in our last two games.
"Too many people wrote us off after a bad start and it was disappointing to see people say we are going to be relegated.
"But we are going to get this criticism as we are a small club in the Championship. We have to take this performance against Burnley in our next game.
"We cannot forget coming to the likes of Birmingham and play as well as we did, and to win it is a great day for us."
Gary Rowett, Birmingham's manager, admitted it was "mentally disappointing."
He added: "Firstly you have to congratulate Rotherham for doing an excellent job away from home.
"Secondly did Tuesday night at Aston Villa expend a lot of energy and did it take a little away from the players in terms of the zip and verve we play?
"It is difficult to manage and manage that sort of situation.
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"I thought we were flat after one or two minutes. You could see that we didn't get our defensive shape or move up the pitch quickly enough.
"When you see us playing really well we break with some real pace and power. We stopped doing that against Rotherham.
"We are in a run of having to play seven games in a 21-day spell but we cannot use that as an excuse.
"Overall, we didn't show enough quality and both goals came from mistakes."
Rowett added: "You could argue that two of our best players this season have been Maikel Kieftenbeld and Stephen Gleeson and they made the mistakes which led to the two goals.
"Maikel gave away a poor pass which you are unlikely to see again this season, while Gleeson also gave away the ball and gifted them their second goal.
"I am not the sort of person to blame people but we have got to understand if we do not do things well enough we have to make sure we sort it out and do better in the next game."
