Overall , a mixed game. Classy okay in the first half with some lively overlaps and passing , we looked dangerous in the beginning and showed it with the first goal, Cox breaking forward and sliding it to the right to McLaughlin who slotted it home nicely in the 7th minute. Bit shakey and scrappy towards the end of the second half. After the break , the ball spent 3/4 of the time in the air or placed down for fouls , wasn't great to watch and was a bit scary , but we kept on going with our terrible pitch and increasing Rotherham pressure. Cox gets his goal near the end of the match out of nowhere , chasing after an absolute punt by Oxley , defender tried to shield it out , nicked , ran into the middle and great goal to seal it.
Oxley - 9 - Faultless , excellent double save towards the end and did well in a scary goalmouth scramble, would be 10 if had more to do in the 1st half
Elvis - 7 - Did well today for a young player , inexperience showed on occasions, couple of dodgy clearances , but did well to stand in for Demi.
White - 9 - Absolutely solid performance today , dealt well with constantly being pulled down, good tackles and clearances
Turner - 7 - Won virtually every ball in the air , although a few of them were dangerously misplaced , did well to last the full 90, another fairly solid performance
Coker - 8.5 - Very good in attack and defence , 100% commited and ran his heart out up and down the left wing , a typical fantastic performance from Ben
Wordsworth - 6.5 - Did well in the first half, could obviously see the whole 'playing for the contract' , played some good balls and also broke up their play on a few occasions , really faded towards the end and barely touched the ball in the second half
Yearwood - 8 - Was very very impressed by Dru, very close to scoring a long range sidefoot , tipped over the bar. Kept misjudging the bounce from their clearances , but I'm sure that'll come with experience. Ran for miles
Mantom - 7.5 - I was personally impressed at how well he broke up the play , and seemed to be popping up putting pressure on them all over the midfield, however slightly negative on occasion , backwards runs and passes , but nothing too bad.
McLaughlin - 7 - Well placed finish for the goal after the across pitch pass from Cox , tried very hard , but again one of those who faded out towards the end.
Fortune - 6.5 - Very classy in the first half and seemed to want to put the effort in and ran all over the place. Typically ran out of steam around the 60th minute , and ended up being a bit of a waste of space towards the end , a few offsides and not really being in the game.
Cox - 10 - Absolutely superb , one of the hardest working performances I've seen from him , great assist , and great goal at the end , stealing it off the defender trying to shepherd the ball out of okay and calmly slotting it home , sealing the game and relieving a lot of pressure. Class
Subs-
Timlin - 6.5 - Did well to bring a bit of presence back into the midfield after we seemed to not be able to keep the ball , did what was needed.
Harrison - not really enough time to rate , ran about a bit and that's it really
Wright - only had 2 mins so meh.
Referee - He was okay , not brilliant , seemed to give all the pushes and shoves in Rochdale's direction , but nothing too criminal, probably kept stopping the game because he was one of the more portly refs and couldn't keep up.
7 points behind the playoffs , who knows eh ? ;)