‘Nowhere near!’ – Millwall boss Gary Rowett explains why trying to work out a play-off equation is pointless

Millwall manager Gary Rowett is not predicting what lies in store for the remainder of the Championship season – revealing he and first-team technical coach Joe Carnall already got it horribly wrong when they last took a stab at working out how they and their play-off rivals would fare.

The Lions could move into the top six if they can win at Birmingham City on Saturday.

Monday’s 2-1 win over Hull City moved the South London club up to seventh in the standings and just a point behind Sheffield United.

When asked how he saw the situation, Rowett replied: “Very simple….about a week ago myself and Joe sat down in the apartment and tried to work out who was going to get what points – including ourselves. And three games later we were basically absolutely nowhere near! That probably shows what we know about other results and our own – plus that it is just not worth trying.

“It’s impossible. If you sit there and say: ‘Such and such a team will get one point’ and then they win the game it blows it out of the water. You have genuinely just got to concentrate on your own games.

“I said that to the players before the Barnsley game. I said: ‘Look, forget the last few games – we’re in a position where we just have to take care of our own stuff. If we win our game then we just sit back and look at the results coming in and see where we are’. You can’t look at it any other way.

“It’s exactly the same – take care of business, let’s do our bit, and then everyone else drops points. It just underlines the importance of not looking at the bigger picture.

“It’s just thinking about what we need to do better to give ourselves the best possible chance. That is really it. It is very cliche but unfortunately it’s a cliche for a reason – because probably the last thousand managers have said exactly the same thing because it is about right.”