BILLY BUNTER

Weblog: The football punter

Same old Millers are unlikely to buck trend

FA CUP second-round replay week is a week that’s probably greeted with mixed emotions among the footballing fraternity.

Some clubs, Oxford United, for example, are just happy to be involved in a second-round replay week. Trailing 2-1 with a handful of minutes left at Accrington Stanley, they fought back for a 3-3 draw and the opportunity to bring Accy back to the Kassam for another go.

Gillingham are doubtless less bothered to be involved. They lost 2-0 at Preston but have got far bigger fish to fry, if promotion from League Two can in any way be compared to frying fish.

As for Bradford City, faced with a replay at Brentford, followed by a trip to either Bury or Southend, methinks they’re probably privately delighted that someone got their paperwork in a mess prompting their expulsion from the competition.

And that brings us to Rotherham who, a snout I know has revealed, have got a knack of not doing especially well in FA Cup replays after being handed rubbish ties in the draw for the next round.

And the research backs it up. Two years ago they were held by lowly York, two years earlier it was Aldershot, the year before that Forest Green. On each occasion they lost the replay by a default 3-0 scoreline having been offered up in the interim the respective carrots of trips to Darlington, Millwall and Swindon.

There’s a trend here, isn’t there? Okay, new gaffer, new ground, maybe a new mindset but I’m betting that faced with the monstrosity of a trip to Aldershot in round three rather than a day out at Stamford Bridge, the Millers might find a way of not being overly interested at Notts County where the Magpies get a massive thumbs-up.