Millers dreading an Easter resurrection for Wigan

Anyone of a religious inclination will spend Easter weekend celebrating a miraculous resurrection.

Anyone of a Rotherham United inclination will spend the same weekend praying there is not a miraculous resurrection of another sort.

On the back of a two-week international break, the Millers enter the final stretch of a long and topsy-turvy Sky Bet Championship campaign with their relegation fate still undecided.

With seven games to go they are five points ahead of third-from-bottom Wigan – it’s officially squeaky bum time.

Steve Evans will be celebrating if he can keep the Millers up this season

There is a very good chance the team who will end up in the third relegation spot – assuming Blackpool and Millwall take the bottom two places – will be decided over the games on Good Friday and Easter Monday.

Rotherham are in pole position, they are the team outside of the relegation zone, they know their safety is still in their own hands.

In fact, for the entire season has always been about what the Millers do and crucially it still is.

But as the games have ticked by and they have thrown points away and stumbled with the finishing line in sight, it’s suddenly also become about what Wigan do.

That is due to the result between the two sides three weeks ago, where Latics won 2-1 despite Rotherham dominating, and crucially that crazy 10-minute period in the last round of fixtures which swung the points difference from nine to five after late goals in respective games against Sheffield Wednesday and Bolton.

On paper, which for the unpredictable Championship is a useless tool to use as a guide, the Millers have the favourable fixtures.

They begin by travelling to Birmingham on Good Friday. It’s definitely not a game not to be sniffed at as none at this level are, but with their hosts’ mid-table position and faltering form, it represents a real chance to claim some points.

Indeed, Blues have won less league games than Steve Evans’ men in 2015 and with no chance of relegation or promotion, they could be a side there for the taking.

Contrast that with Wigan’s trip to Middlesbrough and Malky Mackay’s side come up against a team very much still playing for something.

Boro are in the middle of a fascinating race for promotion to the Premier League, which arguably contains up to eight competitors, and they can ill-afford a home loss against a team in the bottom three.

Aitor Karanka’s men have won eight of their last nine home games, but that is offset by Wigan’s impressive away form, where they have won their last four, including a surprise success at high-flying Norwich.

Things can still get interesting at the bottom end of the Championship table

Those games are followed 72 hours later by a return to home soil for both.

The Millers host Brighton, themselves not mathematically safe from the drop, while Wigan welcome Derby to the DW Stadium.

Neither side can boast an impressive home record in recent times with the Millers losing three league games in a row for the first time at New York Stadium while Wigan have not tasted a home victory since August.

Rotherham will see this as an excellent chance to get three of the six points boss Evans has targeted for survival and this game surely deserves a ‘must-win’ classification, coming against a team around them in the table.

The visit of Derby will be a tough encounter for Wigan, regardless of their woeful home form.

The Rams have slipped in recent weeks as they look increasingly play-off bound, but with automatic promotion still a possibility they will be hopeful of getting the three points at Wigan.

If Rotherham have a bad an Easter as someone who is allergic to chocolate then they could find themselves in the bottom three for only the second time this season and the first since November.

But for that to happen they would need to lose their two games, against average opposition, while Wigan would have to beat two sides in an automatic promotion race.

For them to have climbed out of the relegation zone for the time since November on the back of beating Boro and Derby would be a resurrection of biblical proportions.

But if Easter goes better for Rotherham than a chocoholic getting sent to the Cadbury’s factory, then their survival could be all-but guaranteed.

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A four-point haul from their two games and defeats for Wigan would restore that nine-point gap and with only five games left, that would be hard for the Latics to overhaul.

Six points from the Easter weekend and none for Wigan, well that would just be dreamland for the Millers.

This, of course, assumes that the final relegation berth will be taken by one of the Millers or Wigan.

But Fulham are very much still in it considering they play Wigan and Rotherham in back-to-back home games after the Easter weekend, which could be crucial if they pick up no points from their derbies with Brentford and Charlton over the festive period.

Whatever happens over the next two games, there are still plenty of twists and turns ahead.

But if Wigan were to mount a miraculous Easter resurrection and win both of their games, then the Millers are likely to be staring down the barrel.