A long-time servant of Rotherham United as a player, Paul Warne has been serving as manager for the Millers for five seasons.
Although initially named caretaker manager for the club in January 2017, Warne was later appointed permanent manager after Rotherham suffered relegation from the Championship to Sky Bet League One at the end of the 2017/18 season. In his playing career, the Norwich-born midfielder saw action in more than 250 career games for the Millers, going on to score more than 30 goals across all competitions in what would be two spells with the club – playing from 1999 to 2005, and later from 2009 until his retirement in 2012.
In 2012, Warne was granted a testimonial by the club for numerous years of service as a player, coach and joint caretaker-manager.
Manager Paul Warne quotes...
On the victory over the weekend away to Crewe Alexandra:
“I’m obviously pleased. I quote enjoy winning. I thought we overcomplicate the game a little it in the first half. It was a difficult game, as in both teams, with the conditions.
“I came in at halftime thinking one [goal] wasn’t going to be enough. That’s how I felt. I thought our second half performance was better than the first half. We could have come away with five or six goals on another day.
“It is important. I said to the lads before the game [against Crewe Alexandra] that I don’t really think today was about tactics. Just roll your sleeves up; win your personal battles; don’t take any unnecessary risks; make sure your clearances are good. If you want to get promoted and you want to be the best version of yourselves. To come away with three points is good. The league results have been reasonably kind.”
On being in the thick of the promotion battle:
“We’ve got 19 games left. Wigan have got 21 [games remaining]. And some others have like 16 or 17 games left. I say this all the time … there’ll be weeks where we win, and weeks where everyone else will win. That’s just how football is. Not every team can win every single week. Not everyone in the top six can win every single game. Today, the league looks favorable. But we play Tuesday night, and it could turn the other way. So, we need to keep attacking games and trying to win them. If we’re fortunate enough to get the points we need, then that’s all I can ask.”
On the importance of the Doncaster Rovers midweek game:
“If you win, then you always go into the next game confident. I’m well aware of the difficulty of the game Tuesday night because we’ll take a really big following which makes it a really big game. Obviously, it’s the local derby which makes it an even bigger game for both teams.
“It’s going to be a really tough game for us. They’ve made loads of signing this window with major improvements, I think they’ve made. In every game in this league, you have to be at your best to win.”