With the talk on the street surrounding the takeover, which is supposedly nearing completion and Sam Allardyce being linked with a move back to the club, we do have a game against Rotherham tonight that we’d like to win…
Ahead of the game, Jack Ross gave his views on tonight’s opposition. “They’ve struggled for a bit of continuity in terms of fixtures because of the league this season and what’s happened with some of the teams involved," added Ross. “Like anybody coming down, there’s usually that little period of adjustment, and we’ve seen that with the results which have been mixed so far. But they’ve had some good performances and results mixed in with that as well and after winning on Saturday they come into this fixture in the best possible frame of mind. They have a lot of players who played in the Championship and they’ve added to the squad really well. They have a good energy about their team and we know we’re going to have to play well tonight. I’ve repeated often enough though, our record at the Stadium of Light over the last 18 months has been good and we want to continue that again tonight.”
Ross is also happy that all his attacking players are chipping win with goals. “If you look at other clubs around the league that did well last season, they all had options in attack,” said Ross. “Charlton obviously had (Lyle) Taylor, but they also had (Karlan) Grant, before he went to Huddersfield. Luton had two very good strikers. Even this year, if you look at Peterborough, who have scored a few goals, they’ve got (Ivan) Toney and (Mo) Eisa. We’ve maybe not had that in terms of a set partnership, but I think what we’ve got is a lot of different players who have the ability to score goals. It’s not just the natural strikers that carry a goal threat for us, we’ve got wide players or players who play just off the striker who can contribute, and at the moment, they’re all doing that. They’re contributing in different ways, but they’re all on the scoresheet for the season and they’ve all provided assists as well. That’s encouraging for us, it’s just about making sure we have enough of the ball in that area of the pitch. I still think we’re a little bit reluctant to get the ball forward as much as we should do sometimes, especially because of what we’ve got in the forward areas, but we’re working hard at that and we’ve scored 18 goals in nine games, which is a healthy return at this stage of the season.”
