‘Flashes of excellence’ from Rotherham delight boss Warne

Paul Warne was all smiles as his Rotherham side made it nine games unbeaten on Saturday in comfortable fashion against MK Dons.

The 3-0 scoreline was pretty justified too - with goals from Michael Ihiekwe, Dan Barlaser and Freddie Ladapo completing the rout at Stadium MK, handing Liam Manning his heaviest defeat since taking over at the club.

“I’m really pleased,” Warne said afterwards. “It was a good away performance against a really good team. There were flashes of excellence and that was down to the lads’ dedication. The out of possession stuff was good, today.

“We were not faultless, and there are still things to improve upon, but it was very close. We demand a lot out of the group and they delivered. There were some really good performances out there, today.”

Warne also singled out Barlaser, who scored Rotherham’s second of the day directly from a corner in the second half.

“Dan (Barlaser) is a good kid,” he continued. “He is a bit of a quarterback for us. He enables the other two midfielders to push on. He enables us to switch the play really quick. We like to play with width. It was a really good performance from him and he was chaperoned by two energetic performances from Ben Wiles and Ollie (Rathbone).”