Rotherham manager Matt Hamshaw admitted he had ‘learned a real lot’ about how next season will look after the 1-0 League One defeat at Wigan.
James Carragher’s 36th-minute header from Owen Dale’s corner was the difference between the two sides as Wigan claimed the win they needed to mathematically secure their third-tier status.
The Millers were already safe from the drop but Hamshaw didn’t see much to make him optimistic about the future.
“I’ve got a lot of thoughts. I thought we were too passive, too lethargic – there were a lot of things I didn’t like and only a couple of things I did like,” he said.
“I was really disappointed to concede from a set-piece because I thought we had the better chances. On another day we could have scored three or four goals and we probably should have done.
“I don’t remember Wigan really hurting us, we had a lot of controlled possession without the cutting edge.
“When we did have the cutting edge, we didn’t take the opportunities, which isn’t a good mixture towards getting football results.
“But I learned a real lot today about going into the summer and I’ve learned a lot over these five or six games I’ve been in charge of.
“I don’t think it’s right to talk about them here and now but there’s a lot of things we can improve on over the summer.
“Moving forward, I know exactly how it looks. I thought I knew how it looked but this has reaffirmed a lot of what I thought.
“I always strive to be the best we can be and I don’t think we’ve been as good as we should have been given the amount of talent in the dressing room.”
Wigan head coach Ryan Lowe admitted he wouldn’t be celebrating despite his side having banished any worries of relegation with back-to-back wins over Easter.
“Me, as the head coach, I was never really in too much doubt (about relegation) if the truth be known,” he said.
“What I didn’t want to happen was us to sleepwalk into a relegation battle, where you have to go to places like Burton and Northampton needing points.
“It was all about us and we have too much of a good team and squad and staff to be fighting down there.
“I never came here to save us from any sort of relegation threat, I came here to help us climb the table and we’re starting to do that.
“It’s obviously nice to win two in a row, it’s what you go to work for during the week. We just want to find the solution of winning more games of football.
“It has been a big change for the players, of course, because it’s a different style of play to the old manager and to reiterate there is no right or wrong way.
“Different managers have different ways of doing things, different views, but you can see the intent and the chances we’re creating.
“I think we created 16 chances today, and eight on target, which is what you want.
“With my teams, we always want to attack and score goals as well as being able to adapt at times, which we’ve also done.”
