Head Coach Steven Schumacher is looking forward to the “special atmosphere” of a Boxing Day fixture when Wanderers welcome Rotherham United to the Toughsheet Community Stadium in Sky Bet League One.
The Whites return to BL6 for the first of back-to-back festive fixtures at home, with Rotherham first up before taking on Mansfield Town three days later, and Schumacher is relishing the clash.
Previewing the contest against Matt Hamshaw’s Millers, Schumacher told Wanderers TV: “I’m definitely looking forward to it as I’ve never had a home league fixture on Boxing Day as a manager or a coach, so I can’t wait for that. There’s a special atmosphere about Boxing Day fixtures and hopefully there will be a really good crowd there.
“If we can manage to play well and get a win, and send everyone home in a good festive mood then that will be brilliant, so I can’t wait for the game.
“This league has shown that a lot of teams are inconsistent, before Rotherham had lost their last three games, they were unbeaten in eight and had a few good wins in there, that just goes to show, you don’t know what you are going to get from a lot of the teams.
“What I do remember is they came to our place last year and found a way to win a game that we completely controlled and dominated, and had 30-odd shots that night, and they won 1-0, so we don’t want that to happen again, that will give them confidence and belief that they can do it.
“They have got some experience, their manager Matt (Hamshaw) is an experienced coach, so we’ve got to play well to win.”
Following last Saturday’s narrow 2-1 defeat away at Wycombe Wanderers, Schumacher believes his men can respond positively, as they aim to extend an unbeaten home league record in 2025/26 and progress up the table from their current sixth position.
The boss continued: “We’ll try to focus on ourselves, we think we’ve got a good idea of the system that they’ll play, we’ve faced that system loads of times and if we can be dangerous from our attacking point of view and make sure that we are solid and don’t make mistakes at the back, then we should be fine because at home, we’ve created loads of chances and we’ve been able to capitalise on them chances and the points that we’ve got at home have been good.
“We should have won all of our home games, in the three games that we drew, we should have won so I’m always wanting more. It’s not taken for granted, we have to do things a certain way, for us to play well and get results at home, we’ve got to get the crowd involved first and foremost, we’ve got to try and play with energy if we can.
“Sometimes we have to be patient and score in the second-half, we’ve also blown teams away at our place in the first 20 minutes, so whatever it needs to get the result that we want, we just have to find a way to win.”
Schumacher wants to send the Wanderers supporters home happy on Friday, with the busy festive period of games being a personal highlight in the calendar for him.
He added: “The Christmas period is busy for us, it’s the best period for the fans and as a player and as a coach it’s part of the job and we love it.
“That’s all we’re focusing on. We know we’ve got loads of games coming up, it’s a really busy schedule but we’ll just look for this one, try our best to play well, get a result and send our fans home happy.
“We’re at full strength and ready to go.”
Watch Steven’s pre-match interview in full by clicking here!