Rudy rewrites the record books
SIX months. 15 games – 14 defeats and one draw. 189 days. It’s been a long wait for a win for Aston Villa fans.
But new boss Roberto Di Matteo insists they will not have to wait as long for the next one.
A vocal crowd of 33,286 packed Villa Park for its first league game outside the top flight for almost 30 years.
And they saw that miserable winless streak ended as Rudy Gestede’s double and a Jack Grealish solo goal helped Villa put the awful midweek EFL Cup exit at the hands of Luton behind them.
Di Matteo said: “I’m happy because many of our players haven’t had that winning feeling for a long, long time so to experience this win is very important for the group and for the supporters.
“We wanted to win our first home game as we want to make Villa Park a difficult place for other teams to visit.
“We needed to start a spark for the fans and I think we did that very well.
“We had a lot of chances and didn’t really concede anything to Rotherham. It was a pleasing afternoon.
“You can do everything right on the training pitch but the best recipe for confidence is the result at the end of the week.
“This result will give us a little bit of confidence, now we need to add another result to it.”
Villa were on top from the getgo and only a superb fingertip save from Millers keeper Lee Camp stopped Aly Cissokho’s fifth-minute 25-yard rocket finding the top corner.
Their early endeavour was rewarded with a 21st-minute lead, albeit through some dodgy defending from Rotherham.
Aaron Tshibola robbed dithering duo Jake Forster-Caskey and Jon Taylor to launch a rampaging run and find Cissokho, who crossed for Gestede to outmuscle marker Richard Wood and head home from eight yards.
Gestede could have had another seven minutes later as he glanced a similar header inches wide.
But he did get his second on the stroke of half-time, dinking a cool finish over Camp after a fine through ball from Ross McCormack – whose 30-yard rocket had been saved by the keeper moments earlier.
Gestede should have had his hat-trick seven minutes into the second half but steered Jordan Ayew’s inviting low centre wide from 12 yards.
However, the excellent Grealish sealed the points six minutes from time with a wonderful goal, waltzing through the United defence and rounding Camp to tuck home from the tightest of angles.
Rotherham failed to lay a glove on the home side, leaving boss Alan Stubbs frustrated.
Stubbs said: “I thought before the first goal went in, we were starting to grow into the game and we had kept them quiet-ish.
“Then to concede the second goal in first-half injury time was a real blow because had we gone in 1-0 down we were still in it.
“We should do better for the first two goals and then for the third, Jack runs all the way across the pitch but we didn’t get a tackle on him, which was more disappointing than anything.
“But we were up against a team who have significantly more resources than us and who have just paid a record amount of money for a striker, so we have to be realistic and we won’t get too downbeat.”