‘Away form has been nowhere near good enough’ – Lions boss Rowett on making call to ditch five at the back

Gary Rowett has revealed that he “had to do something differently” in a bid to solve Millwall’s poor away form.

The Lions have failed to win on the road in the Championship this season and have failed to record an away win since beating Reading back in March.

Rowett tried to change that against Rotherham by tweaking the Lions’ shape.

Millwall ditched their usual five at the back and instead deployed a four-man defence, with Tyler Burey and Andreas Voglsammer sitting either side of Zian Flemming in a number 10 spot behind Tom Bradshaw.

The Lions did have chances to end their rotten away run after a rocket from Flemming on the stroke of half-time restored parity for the visitors, who had trailed to an early Dan Barlaser penalty. But ultimately, the visitors were forced to settle for a point.

And when quizzed on the decision to change, Rowett slammed the Lions’ away form as “nowhere near good enough”.

“The thinking behind it is that our away form has been nowhere near good enough, so I had to do something differently,” Rowett said. “I felt today was a game to do that. We had nothing to lose by trying something.

“The challenge I have now, of course is, our home form has been so good playing a [back] five, I have to then look at whether I want to keep that or change it back. We’ll make that decision based on the opposition, we’ll make that decision based on what we think and how players recover. But I was quite pleased with it. It didn’t leave us too open and we had good control in the game. It’s important then that our attacking players go and do the business going the other way.”