RUFC - Scott 'it was like watching a pantomime'

Rotherham United Manager, Andy Scott went to watch Swindon Town play Southampton on Tuesday night and afterwards referred to it as like watching 'a circus`.

After playing them yesterday, and being stood side-by-side with the 'ring-master`, Scott was asked what he thought of Paolo Di Canio, his bench and his players.

Speaking to Radio Sheffield, Scott said, 'They were poor and all they wanted to do was roll around and batter people and their bench was like a pantomime really but I knew that`s what we were going to walk into after seeing them the other night. The amount of time Di Canio spends on the pitch and his staff watching us more than watching the game it`s ridiculous. How the fans and directors of Swindon enjoy watching that, I don`t know.

'The players are rolling around in front of the dugout knowing that they are going to be off the bench and influencing the referee and for a member of their staff to chuck the ball away and start grabbing my players at the end shows how desperate they are. They acted like they won the Cup Final today which just shows how hard they knew the game was.`

When he went to retrieve the ball, to take a quick throw-in, defender, Dale Tonge, who had come on for Lewis Grabban for the last fifteen minutes of the game, was kicked by someone from the Town bench and Scott said, 'There was a few things going on. It was all kicking-off and I tried to take Tongey away from it because I wanted to get on with the game.

'It is farcical. The way that Paolo Di Canio has played football you expect his sides to play nice football but the first attack we had in the game the supposedly tough Scottish right-back rolls around like he`s been shot; they smash a ball up the top and the centre-forward goes running straight into my centre-half without even looking where the ball, and he did that most of the game and then my goalkeeper ends up with a broken nose and half his teeth missing which set the tone for the game.

'Now, if that`s the way they want to play then good luck to them but we didn`t play well and that`s all I can say about it but there was a lot of other things going on throughout the game that influenced it and it was just a poor game to watch but the whole atmosphere of the place is generated by what goes on in front of the dugout and it all started from that first challenge when Alex Revell didn`t even touch their right-back. It`s difficult for the referee because they are going over like they`re pirouetting and there`s no one there and it`s embarrassing. We aren`t used to that sort of thing in League Two, although, unfortunately, it`s filtering down the leagues and it was certainly prevalent in the game today and it wasn`t just the foreign players, it was the British players as well which I found quite astounding.`





Vital Rotherham on:

Vital Rotherham on:

Click here to join in the debate on the club forum.