Lions boss Rowett: Our big players – like George Saville – have stepped up when it matters

Millwall manager Gary Rowett has talked about his senior players “stepping up” with the recent performances – and also made telling comments about the solidity of his team.

The Lions are fifth in the Championship and picked up their first win in five matches in yesterday’s 2-0 victory over play-off rivals Preston North End.

Midfielder George Saville’s displays continue to push him forward as a strong contender for their Player of the Year award.

He made a game-high nine tackles and five interceptions, only Shaun Hutchinson (six) had more.

His 61 touches was only exceeded in the Lions’ ranks by Danny McNamara (72).

“He’s been really consistent all season but the last four or five games, for me, he has stepped up another level,” said Rowett, when asked about Saville’s form.

“What you need at this stage of the season is for your big players to go in and handle the games. The likes of him, Coops and Hutchy have stepped up another level in this last period of games.

“It’s fantastic. It’s what we need. What we need is some other players to step up again, give us that little bit more, because parts of today’s performance weren’t as good as we wanted them to be.

“What this team does is it finds a way to win games and keep clean sheets. You have got to give them massive credit for that.

“About 80 minutes in I said it on the sidelines: ‘Maybe we’re better when we don’t play very well’. In those scrappy games we don’t perform as well as we’d like, but look at the amount of balls that went into our box and Coops got his head on it, the amount of times Hutchy stepped in to take the ball or Sav with a last-ditch tackle. Those are parts of the game.

“I watched the game last night (Middlesbrough’s 5-1 win over Norwich) with lots of goals and lots of chances. Part of the game – I’m not suggesting these teams need to listen to me – and what we do well is because we are very difficult to score against. That’s because we’ve got players who will fight and do put their bodies on the line to keep a clean sheet.

“That’s just as important as the other side of it.

“It’s always hard to get that perfect balance. When you pick a team that are trustworthy and will do that, then sometimes you lose a little bit from the freedom going forward.

“If you pick a team that has the freedom going forward then we lose a little bit of what we are. We’re always looking for that balance, which isn’t ideal, but it wins us games.”