The Jim Bentley column

8:33am Wednesday 20th August 2008

SATURDAY was a day to forget for us all. We did not perform anywhere near the levels that we can and that was a major disappointment for all of us.

But some people may forget that Saturday was the same team which performed so well at Wycombe a week before - and you do not become a bad side overnight.

It was a big disappointment and not the way that we wanted to play in our first home game of a long campaign - but let’s not get too carried away with the defeat.

Rotherham are a decent side and are playing for their lives and futures. They started the season on minus 17 points and have a 100 per cent record this season.

When you are in trouble there are two ways to go. You can roll over and accept your fate or come out fighting and that’s what they are doing.

We didn’t defend as well as we can and we didn’t attack as well as we can and it was one of those days that we have to put behind us.

We have had a talk about what went wrong and we are now determined to put things right at Bury on Saturday, because we owe that to ourselves, to the manager and to the fans.

No-one likes losing games of football and we do not intend to make a habit of it. We want to put things right at Bury.

We would have liked a midweek game in order to get Saturday out of our systems but we are working hard on the training ground to iron out a few things and none of us can wait for the game.

It’s another big match with a good crowd and we know it’s going to be hard because they are doing well. But we are certainly going to put in a better performance than last Saturday.

The Rotherham game also came three days after we lost at Nottingham Forest in the Carling Cup and that was a lesson for us.

Forest are an excellent team and played really well and we knew very early in the game that is was going to be a hard night.

We beat Preston and Wolves last year - but Forest showed us the respect with the side they put out and the way they played and we all did an awful lot of running.

Their movement and passing was excellent and the wingers Cohen and Martin were really difficult to play against because they floated all over the place.

But as I said last week, going to places like the City Ground is an experience for everyone and a good chance for the younger lads to see how things are done in the Championship.

They have seen Carl Baker and Garry Thompson move away in the summer and if any of the lads want to move up, that’s what they have to aspire to.

Feel free to contact me by emailing jim.bentley@lancaster.newsquest.co.uk