Coach Tony Mowbray has called on the Town side to repeat the performance from Wednesday's Worthington Cup match at Anfield in front of their home fans against Rotherham on Saturday. Mowbray was taking manager Joe Royle's regular pre-match press conference with the manager still away in the North-West after the recent death of his father.

Town have a busy few week when they can do much to improve their current lowly position starting with Rotherham: “We've got three games in a week coming up and we'd like nine points. We've got to take each game as it comes as the old football cliché runs, starting with Rotherham.

“We know what will be in front of us, a very hard-working, very well-organised team. We need to concentrate on their set plays, their freekicks, their long throws and corners and freekicks and defend them very well.

“And we've got to get our own game going and play exciting open football and at the end of the day what's important is that we get the three points and score a couple of goals.

“After the good performance at Liverpool it's important that we now repeat that and show our own fans that we can perform to a good level.

“The fans have stuck by us and the numbers that still turn out amaze me. The players appreciate it at the stadium which now looks fantastic. I remember I used to play at a fantastic stadium at Ayresome Park but I can remember when the noise was echoing round because there weren't too many people in there sometimes.

“We need to repay the fans with our performances now. I think at this moment in time they would be happy just with a win because wins put you in a position to get into the New Year to compete with the top six.

On the subject of the embarrassing incident earlier in the season where Rotherham manager Ronnie Moore fell for a hoaxer claiming Town wanted to talk to him about the Portman Road job, Mogga says he expects Moore to treat the game like any other: “I don't know how seriously he took that incident. I'm sure he's coming here to try and get the three points and it's down to us to make it as difficult as possible for him to do that.”

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