Burton boss Gary Bowyer beaming after ‘best win of the season’ against Rotherham

Head coach Gary Bowyer hailed Burton’s “best win of the season” as his side scrapped their way to a 1-0 win over relegation rivals Rotherham.

Albion came into the game on the back of a gruelling FA Cup game with West Ham at the weekend that went all the way to extra time and while they could not breach the Hammers defence, a moment of quality from Tyrese Shade settled matters against the Millers.

“I’ve just told the lads, that’s the best win of the season,” Bowyer said. “You can forget all your fancy wins away at the top teams. That right there is the best win.

“The game itself wont bring the crowd from Saturday flocking back but the win will.

“The finish was beautiful. Very composed,” Bowyer said of Shade’s 11th goal of the season. “We need him to be in and around the penalty box more.”

With both sides starting the game in Sky Bet League One’s relegation zone it was never going to be pretty and Bowyer appreciated the efforts in a tough game.

“Tonight was about trying to execute the basics and we didn’t do enough of that.” he added. “Winning tackles, headers, blocking shots. We knew it was going to be a real hard slog because of the events of Saturday and that is why tonight is such a big win.”

Kyran Lofthouse was credited with the assist for Shade’s goal, taking him into double figures for the season, with Bowyer keen to praise the man he brought back to Albion in the summer after a spell on loan from Barnsley last season.

He said: “He has been a threat all season for us and to have the number of assists that he has now added to his goals, it’s a credit to him and just shows why I really wanted to bring him back to the club last summer.”

Rotherham boss Matt Hamshaw pulled no punches as his side were dragged deeper into the relegation scrap following defeat.

“It’s really disappointing as there wasn’t really a lot in the game,” he said.

“There were some good bits but an awful lot of bad bits in the game. We have to take responsibility and more ownership when we are on the ball. Some of the decision making needs to improve. It’s so frustrating given where we are in the league.”

This was a proverbial six-pointer in the bottom four and Hamshaw knew his side needed to pick up the win.

He said: “It’s a setback whenever you lose a game but given where we are and where Burton are it becomes bigger given that context. We knew they had a difficult game on Saturday, but we lacked that bit of guile in the second half to really test them and take advantage.”