Millwall boss Gary Rowett impressed by Preston North End’s defensive steel

Millwall manager Gary Rowett reckons that Saturday’s opponents Preston North End are firmly in Championship play-off contention.

Ryan Lowe’s side were in the top six before the Tuesday night fixtures bumped them down to seventh.

Preston have conceded just 16 goals in their opening 20 league matches – also scoring the same amount. They have the best defensive record in England’s second tier but are the lowest scorers.

“Teams like ourselves and Preston, you’ve got to do certain things outstandingly well to get in the mix,” Rowett told the South London Press. “What they’ve done really well so far this season is their defensive record  – it was incredible at the start.

“I’m sure Ryan will say the same – they have an incredible defensive record and then people start saying: ‘Yeah, well, but you can’t score and you’re not attacking very much’. It’s pretty hard to do everything brilliantly well if you’re our type of team.

“They have found a bit more balance now. They have certainly scored goals. They have not lost that defensive security and that’s why they are where they are.

“They have got a really hard-working team. They have got different ways to score goals and they are fully in the mix.

“Since Ryan has gone in, I imagine they have picked up as many points as quite a lot of teams in this division. They’ll be pretty pleased with the way they’ve started. Of course for us that is not that much of a concern – it’s about what we do and can we build on some of our recent away performances that have certainly been better.

“To go to Rotherham, we should have won the game and got the draw. We go to Bristol and are pretty dominant and get the win. Then we go to Birmingham and feel like we should have also won the game. It’s a good period for us. We want to build on that before the international break.

“People say ‘you want to get a good result before the international break’. Yeah, so do Preston! It is what it is. I’m sure either of us are going to be fairly happy or one of us is going to be pretty unhappy and the other is going to be happy. That’s the way it is. We’ll go there ready to work incredibly hard to see if we can get a result.”