Millwall manager Rowett in honest assessment after defeat to Championship play-off rivals Boro

Gary Rowett admitted that Millwall had to do more after coming up short against Middlesbrough on Saturday afternoon.

Boro edged to a 1-0 win courtesy of a second-half strike from former AFC Wimbledon loanee Marcus Forss. The result leaves Millwall two points outside the Championship play-off spots, albeit with a game in hand on the majority of their top-six rivals.

The Lions were forced to defend for the majority of the first-half but were undone by Forss just nine minutes after the break and were unable to restore parity before time ran out.

Rowett was satisfied with elements of Millwall’s performance against the Riverside but conceded he was disappointed that his side didn’t show more “belief” during the match.

“I think it’s a tough place to come,” Rowett told Millwall TV. “They’ve been on a fabulous run under Michael [Carrick], he’s done a really good job and you can feel the buzz around the place. But we got our game plan really spot on first-half – we frustrated them and made it very difficult to play through us. Had we shown a little bit more quality and belief on the ball then we’d have maybe got into even more positions in an attacking sense.

“We had a good few half-chances in the first-half. Muzza has one from a set-piece where he just needs to glance it and gets too much on it. Stylesly, we have a four on one, as good as a breakaway as you’ll see, and all he’s got to do is get out of his feet and it hits his heel. It was a missed opportunity, but we did a lot of things well.

“They were always going to have little moments of pressure and the crowd get up and it feels worse but I can’t remember Longy having to make too many saves. There was one good one in the first-half where he comes out and smothers the attack, but other than that not a lot. As an away performance, up until that point I was quite happy. The challenge is when they get a little break for the goal, which is a great finish, all of a sudden, you’re chasing the game rather than hoping you can pick them off in that 0-0 situation. That was the disappointment, to go 1-0 down.

“We just needed to play with a bit more quality at times because when we did we got into good areas and I felt we could open them up on the transition in particular. We’ve had some good moments, but again, half-moments and not great chances.”

Millwall struggled to impose themselves during a frenetic first half which was dominated by Boro, who caused the Lions issues with their aggressive press. Rowett’s side had chances after the break and switched things up with Mason Bennett, Romain Esse and Jamie Shackleton all coming on, however, those changes failed to yield a goal.

The Lions chief added: “That’s what you have to do when you’re a team that come away from home, you’re going to stop them playing through you and frustrate them. When you’ve done that, you’ve then got to maintain that threat on the transition all the time. You have to be able to move the ball and put them under pressure, but we didn’t do that at times. It’s that first pass to get away and it’s a poor pass or the touch is the poor. We have to work a lot harder than teams like Middlesbrough in some ways. They’ve got a lot of quality on the bench, they’ve got quality on the pitch and so have we, but we don’t quite have as many options as that, so we have to be at our best.

“Against the ball, we were good. On the ball, at times, we were good, but just not quite enough and then the moments we did have, we didn’t make them count.

“Overall, there’s very little I could really criticise the players for today. It’s just one of those days where those small margins go against us.”