Northampton Town: Boothroyd won’t be distracted by ‘fireworks’ in Rotherham dug-out

Town - who were the final visiting team to play at the Millers’ former home at the Don Valley Stadium - make their maiden appearance at Rotherham’s new ground this weekend in what is their third away fixture in a row.

They face a home side who were booed off the field at the end of their most recent match, a 3-1 home defeat to npower League Two strugglers Bristol Rovers.

That result, combined with six further losses on home soil so far this season, has increased the pressure on manager Steve Evans, whose lively presence in the technical area Boothroyd says he will do his best to ignore.

“I really don’t concern myself too much with opposition managers,” he said.

“I try to read them on what they’ve done in the past during games and we do get an insight into every manager.

“We will want to win the game and so will they and it is going to be a tight battle, I’m sure of that.

“I think you’ve got two good teams going up against each other and I think it might come down to a mistake or somebody being a little bit more organised that the other team to settle the game.

“We have to focus very much on ourselves and not be distracted by any fireworks or any emotion from anybody else.”

Boothroyd is anticipating a difficult game at Rotherham against a Millers side for whom promotion was the sole pre-season objective, both in terms of the manager’s stated aims and the budget with which he was given by the board to achieve such a target.

He admits the Sixfields meeting of the two sides was a close affair but that the 2-1 win for Northampton back in August represented a tactical victory.

“It was a good game here at Sixfields and to be honest it could have gone other way really,” he said.

“Tactically we sorted it out and got the better of them that night.

“But they’ve got some good players and they expect a lot of them there. They’ve got a wealthy owner, a new stadium and everyone expects them to do well this season.

“With that backing comes an expectation and it is nice to have that.

“We’ve got to see if we can go and give a similar account of ourselves to the one we gave earlier in the season and get a similar result.”