This time last year Mark Robins was overseeing Rotherham’s Youth Team. Now, a frenetic 12 months on and he is the main man at Millmoor having stepped into the breach as first team manager towards the end of last season.
LFE Online caught up with Mark, whose goals of course famously propelled Manchester United into the FA Cup Final in 1990, to find out how he has coped with his role as manager of the Millers.
Mark states:
“Obviously it was difficult when I took over last season. We had a poor run of results and as a new manager I was given the job of trying to change mentalities and provide a change of voice to the players to try and get a response from them. Unfortunately the Carlisle defeat at home with four games to go effectively meant we were relegated and from then on I’ve been intent on rebuilding for this season in a different league.”
He continued,
“Last year we just lacked that little bit of quality to close games out and although we’ve brought in thirteen new players over the summer to try and address that, it creates it’s own problems in that you have to gel and galvanise all your new players in a short space of time.”
“When I was involved with the Youth team obviously it was a completely different role. It’s definitely a good grounding but the focus is on player development where as with the first team the pressure is always on results.”
With the aim for this year being to challenge for promotion, Mark contemplated the Miller’s start to the season,
“We’ve had a mixed start but generally played ok, I felt that we were really unlucky to lose against Sheffield Wednesday in the league cup and we lost our first league game the other week against Darlington.”
At the time of writing, Rotherham faced a tough away match at Wrexham, which they subsequently won 1-0. They are currently occupying tenth position in League 2, just four points off the top spot. LFE would like to express its thanks to Mark Robins for taking the time out to speak to LFE Online and we wish them well for the rest of the season.
