‘Blatant penalty’ – Millwall manager Gary Rowett reacts after 1-1 draw with Blackburn Rovers

Millwall boss Gary Rowett was left disappointed by his side’s failure to kill off Blackburn Rovers – before sharing his frustration at being denied a “blatant penalty”.

The Lions took the lead on the hour-mark through Jed Wallace, who stabbed home at the back post. A soft header from Ben Brereton Diaz canceled that out shortly after.

Millwall dominated the majority of the game and appeared to be cruising to their first league win of the season, with the visitors rarely threatening.

And Rowett felt that the Lions had missed out on a “great opportunity” to take all three points.

“It’s disappointing, we’ve had 60 per cent possession and about 18 shots and they’ve had one in the whole game, and they’ve scored with it,” said Rowett after the final whistle.

“It’s a frustrating game. Tony’s got a good side and they’ve got good individual players. They made it hard to play through them at points in the game. They sat off and allowed us to see if we could open them up – I thought we looked comfortable without just quite having that extra bit of zip about us to open them.

“But when we got the ball to our wingbacks, put good balls in the box and attacked with a little more quality we got into some really good area.

“I think you saw that at half time when Tony changed formation to match our shape to see if they could get a foothold in the game. They probably had a five or 10-minute spell and then we stepped on again.

“We scored a very, very good goal, and then really should see the game out. There’s a couple of moments in the game. We should have had a penalty on Coops. I think it’s Brereton or Gallagher who just grabs him around the waist and pulls him to the ground. The referee’s five yards away – I’d expect him to see that and give it. It’s a blatant penalty.

“But I thought we had enough of the game to go and score again, or at the very least defend properly. We concede a very poor goal from a wide free-kick where we allow Brereton to get a free header. You can’t do that at this level. In my opinion, in that one moment, we lost ourselves a great opportunity to get three points.”