Rotherham United travel to Sunderland tomorrow night, and Paul Warne has looked ahead to the clash, calling the Black Cats a ‘great club’.
The Millers are welcomed to the Stadium of Light tomorrow evening as they continue their automatic promotion push against play-off chasing Sunderland.
Last time out, Warne’s side got back to winning ways, beating Oxford United 2-1 on home turf, keeping them in second place of the League One table.
As for Sunderland, they got an outstanding 5-1 win against Cambridge United, so Alex Neil’s side will be brewing with confidence heading into the tie.
Rotherham United can all but confirm automatic promotion to the Championship tomorrow. A win would mean MK Dons need to overcome six or more goal difference to beat the Yorkshire side to a top two spot.
Ahead of the tie, Warne had a lot to say about the opponents whilst speaking to the Rotherham United media team…
“As a player, I’d be thinking ‘brilliant’, playing against a great club, with both teams wanting to win. These are the games you want to play in.
“We go into it in reasonable form and we just have to try and compete. From my point of view it’s an honour to manage a team in that stadium and we want the lads to go out and express themselves and hopefully come away with a win.
“I don’t want the lads to feel like it’s a ‘must win’, it’s a game they should enjoy playing in. If we were to come away with a win, it would mean MK would have to win and we’d have to have a bad goal-swing against Gillingham.”
He then continued, talking about Neil as a manager and Sunderland’s recent form…
“They’ve done really well and Alex is a great manager, too. He’s really well experienced and at a club that won’t phase him.
“He’s got a team that wants to win and the fans are right behind him. Winning seven games out of 10 in any league is some going.
“They’ve got confidence and goals in their team and they will be full of confidence. It’ll be a tough game, but – respectfully – I feel like Alex will be thinking the same about us.”
Double-winning season still on?
The Millers have already won the Papa John’s Trophy, and the League One title is still a possibility as we enter the final two games of the season.
Rotherham United need to make up three points over Wigan Athletic over the next week to win the league, as well as making up two goal difference in the process.
Warne’s side have Sunderland and Gillingham yet to play, with the Latics facing Portsmouth and Shrewsbury Town, so it could go either way.
The game between Sunderland and Rotherham United gets underway at 7:45pm tomorrow.
