Millwall boss gives detailed reason why he isn’t feeling down after Championship unbeaten run was ended

Millwall manager Gary Rowett is far from despondent after their eight-game unbeaten run was ended at Stoke City.

The Lions head into the international break in 10th place in the Championship ahead of what looks to be a pivotal fixture at Luton next weekend.

Only the Hatters and Nottingham Forest have taken more points (21) than Millwall (20) over the last 10 fixtures.

And Rowett knew the Lions’ mammoth effort – when combined with a significant injury list – would eventually take its toll.

Millwall were superb in emphatically halting Huddersfield’s 17-game undefeated run last week but had to go again at the Bet365 Stadium less than 72 hours later.

“We track our physical performance over the season, so I know exactly what is a big effort and what is not a big effort,” said Lions boss Rowett. “I know people can also see it by eye. You could see clearly that Wednesday night [against Huddersfield] was a massive effort.

“Let’s take Scottie Malone and Jed [Wallace] because they are probably two of the players who run with the most intensity, sprint the most distances and the quickest over a longer period. They are more explosive athletes than say centre-halves and what they have to do in the game.

“Wednesday was a huge, huge game – probably one of our biggest of the season. And on the back of having to play four or five games on the spin – with no player to take their place or come and help them for the last 20-30 minutes – you know, as a manager, it is going to be very difficult to do that again when it is that really explosive top end of the pitch.

“I could see 10-15 minutes in that Scottie looked absolutely gassed. He had gone again from running himself into the ground all evening, in an incredible atmosphere and in front of the cameras.

“When the whole team looks like that you know it’s not an individual thing. I thought they’d do that three or four games ago. They kept going until that last one, which they deserve a lot of credit for.

“It’s the after the Lord Mayor’s show, isn’t it? You see it with top teams. They’ll have an incredible win in the Champions League on a Wednesday and they’ll have a bit of a comedown with an average performance against a mid-table team on the Saturday.

“It’s very difficult to mitigate. The only way you really can is to bring three or four players in of a similar athletic quality and let them go in the next game. We haven’t been able to do that.”

Millwall’s selection options have been disrupted for months.

They will welcome back Benik Afobe, ineligible to face his parent club last weekend, but Mason Bennett is set to be missing for up to six weeks with a calf injury that forced him off at Stoke.

Rowett knows the key is how the Lions respond to their reverse in the Potteries.

“The sad irony of football is you do so well to get to where you are, by not losing in eight games and winning six of them, you then lose the next one and people look and think ‘ah, they have thrown it away’.

“It doesn’t work like that. You look at every single team in the division – they will have had a good run and that good run always comes to an end. Look at Huddersfield, their run came to an end against us and they lost their next game as well.

“Players are human – you can’t just keep winning, winning, winning, winning – you are going to have one result that drops you back down.

“The challenge then is to go again and go on another run and be competitive again.

“I knew by losing the game that perhaps ‘people’ would see it as an opportunity missed. But you don’t get to that point and just keep winning – because other teams go on runs, other teams can desperately need points, other teams can run more than you on the day and play with more energy and quality.

“After any defeat you have to bounce back and show again what we’ve been about so far.”

Millwall have finished eighth twice since returning to the Championship in 2017.

Their lowest finish since then was 21st in the 2018-19 season – when they reached the FA Cup sixth round.

The Lions were 11th in the last campaign, which was played entirely behind closed doors.

Rowett is keen for Millwall to “enjoy” their final eight matches. The last time they reached the play-offs at this level was under Mark McGhee in 2001-02, losing in the semi-finals to Birmingham City in the old Division One.

“Wherever you are in the league you have to embrace it as a challenge,” said Rowett, who reached the play-offs as Derby boss in 2018. “That is what teams like ours revel in. What we don’t revel in is that ‘we have to go up’. If you’re Bournemouth, or someone like that, there is pressure now. The expectation is that you have to finish in the top two. Like a Fulham.

“Our expectation isn’t that. But we expect to win games out of this last eight, it’s just how many can we? We’ll soon find out.”