Tom Bradshaw set to try and claim Millwall’s opening goal in 2-1 win over Swansea City

Tom Bradshaw looks set to try and claim Millwall’s first goal in tonight’s 2-1 win over Swansea City.

Initially the Lions’ 48th-minute opener was awarded to centre-back Charlie Cresswell, who had the shot after Ryan Leonard’s huge throw caused a penalty box scramble.

But Millwall boss Gary Rowett revealed afterwards that replays showed the ball seemed to come off the calf of Bradshaw, who ended a five-year absence from the Wales squad after being called up today.

If it does go down as his goal then the former Walsall and Sheffield United striker will be on 14 goals for the campaign.

Andreas Voglsammer made it 2-0 on 55 minutes with a shot that deceived City keeper Andy Fisher.

But almost instantly the Welsh outfit halved the deficit when Matt Grimes’ strike took a deflection to take it past Lions stopper George Long.

Millwall held on to record a second win in a row and move up to fifth in the Championship table. They were up to fourth until Swansea reduced their advantage.

“Swansea dominate the possession stats in the division,” said Rowett. “Swansea make the most passes in the division, that’s what they do. It’s probably a little bit of our Kryptonite, where we want to go and press and get the crowd going – make it a little bit of carnage. The challenge is they stop you doing that. You go to press and they just play around it. You think you’ve got someone and they play out of it. They are very good at doing it.

“Every time I’ve played Swansea in the last three or four years it has been exactly the same type of game – it’s been frustrating, hard to play against and it’s been low-key in terms of tackles and that little bit of physicality that we like.

“We found that a little bit tough first half. I made a change at half-time. I felt I’d rather go up against them a little bit more and take a gamble and lose the game that way, if that was what we needed to do. We needed to get a little bit of life into the game and inject some atmosphere into it. I changed it to 4-3-3 – went up against them with a front three and played a little bit narrower and higher.

“For 20 minutes in the second half not only do we use the ball a little better but we started to press them better and stop them playing. Any team, once you start to put them under a little bit of pressure then the dynamic shifts in the game – it’s not as easy to keep the ball and play your way out.

“We scored two different type of goals. The first one Cressy, in a lot of bodies, does really well to prod it home. It looks like it takes a little deflection when you watch it back. I think it has hit Bradders on the calf. I think he is claiming that as well. Potentially that might be one that gets appealed.

“The second goal is great play by Zian to break free down the left, plays a lovely little pass inside to George Honeyman and he is aware enough to find Vogey. Vogey’s shot gets a small deflection and just wrongfoots the keeper a little bit to go 2-0 up.

“At that point it probably looked like it took the stuffing out of Swansea and then they go and get a deflected shot themselves, which is going miles wide but then hits Manning on the knee and wrongfoots Longy. All of a sudden it’s back to square one again where we’re now chasing and finding it hard to press. We’re having to drop in. They make it a really difficult game and fair play to them because it was a really tough win. Sometimes in these type of games you’ve got to find a way to win it and at this stage of the season we found a way to win – it’s an admirable trait to have.”