Millersmad Preview: Goals Goals Goals

The Millers’ last three visits to Walsall have amassed an amazing 17 goals with the home team securing two 3-2 victories and Rotherham winning an epic game 4-3 in 2002. The last time Mick Harford’s men visited Walsall they were on the losing side even though they had chance after chance against a team who needed to win to have any hope of survival. As it happens that 3-2 victory was not enough for Walsall to stay up and Rotherham fans were more excited at the prospect of an impending takeover.

Fan's Favourite

The 4-3 game of 2002 was a topsy-turvy affair with Rotherham twice squandering a two goal lead at 2-0 and 3-1, only for Alan Lee to score the winning goal late on from the penalty spot.

This game sees the reversal of the opening day fixture where Rotherham were denied a deserved point after Gary Montgomery gave us a sign of things to come when his howler handed Walsall a last minute 2-1 win at Millmoor. Martin Butler scored Rotherham’s goal that day and he returns to the Midlands club where he scored 8 goals in 41 starts as a youngster in the mid nineties.

Old Boy

Walsall manager, Paul Merson doesn’t see there being many goals though and expects Harford’s men to come and defend. “We have watched Rotherham United on a couple of occasions and know that it will be a difficult test, but if we continue to work hard for each other then we have the ability to cause problems for any team in this League. Like ourselves last season and Gillingham who we played the other week, Mick Harford's side have found it difficult to adjust to the demands of League One after suffering relegation last season, but you can be sure that they will be doing all that they can to start making strides up the table and they will come here looking to frustrate us. They have some good players and this is an important game for us because if we can secure three points it will put us right back in amongst the chasing pack.” he told the official Walsall site.

Tenner says they beat us

Meanwhile, Mick Harford will be boosted by the fact that his Millers team have only failed to score on four occasions this season but will also be very wary of the fact he has watched them lose leads in each of the last five games. Talking to the Rotherham Star, Harford said: “We believe we can turn the corner, knowing that we can take heart from our performance against Barnsley.With 10 men we could have won, with nine men we should have won, with 11 men we definitely would have won. If we can take the qualities and attitude that we showed into the next games, I can't see many problems, and if we do it until the end of the season we can finish in a comfortable position.”

Millersmad Prediction: 1-3