Gary Rowett picks out ‘disappointing’ factor from Millwall’s goalless draw with Bristol City
BY ALEX GRACE
Gary Rowett was disappointed his Millwall side could not carry the confidence from their Boxing Day success – a 2-0 win at Watford – into Thursday’s goalless draw at home with Bristol City.
The Lions have now drawn their last three home games.
They dropped out of the top six after being unable to find a way past a resilient Bristol City team that prevented Millwall from having a single shot on target in the entire 90 minutes.
“The disappointing bit for us is, after the Watford game, you hope that we can just play with a little bit more confidence,” said Rowett.
“We’re not the sort of team that can easily play through teams.
“We just huffed and puffed a little bit and found it very difficult to make that last quality pass.
“Every time we got into the final third, it just seemed like either there were too many bodies in the box defensively, and we didn’t quite get enough numbers in there, or the last little action wasn’t consistent enough and not with enough quality.
“We created a couple of chances – Bradders [Bradshaw] header in the first half. Andreas Voglsammer has a strike that the defender does really well to deflect onto the bar – it’s a brilliant strike.
“Then they had a couple of chances where Longy [Long] makes a good save from [Antoine] Semenyo and Andi Weimann.
“[Weimann], an old player of mine, doesn’t usually miss from there. I haven’t seen it back, but he just screws it wide. We were waiting for the offside flag, but it didn’t come, so we got away with that a little bit.”
Millwall had more possession [58 per cent] and more shots [nine] than the visitors to The Den on Thursday evening but could not find a way past Nigel Pearson’s side.
“I thought they [Bristol City] were [organised], said Rowett.
“5-3-2 – they played with five defenders across the back. They pressed us well at times and made it very difficult to play through them.
“Sometimes, that happens when you’re a team that needs a result – you up your performance level and play with a little bit more energy.”
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