Leeds loanee ‘unlucky’ not to start for Millwall – and stakes claim for a starting spot with crucial goal against Cardiff

Gary Rowett admitted that Charlie Cresswell was “unlucky” not to start in today’s 2-0 win over Cardiff City – with the young centre-back putting them on their way to three points.

Cresswell and Benik Afobe scored for the Lions as they ended a three-match losing streak in which they had also not scored.

Leeds loanee Cresswell was only brought on after captain Shaun Hutchinson went off with an groin injury. And he climbed to met Scott Malone’s corner in the 63rd minute to claim his third goal of the season. It was also the first time that a Millwall player had scored since the 3-2 win over Coventry City at The Den on August 13 – a wait of more than seven hours.

Afobe settled the contest in the 90th minute, the striker touching the ball past Niels Nkounko and then lifting his finish past Ryan Allsop.

“It’s three home wins out of four. It was normal service resumed at home. Our home form has been excellent, Reading was a little bit of a blip – I thought it should’ve been a drawn game. We performed reasonably well in big parts of it.

“I wanted us to show a little bit more composure and bravery on the ball. We decided to change it slightly. I decided to change the wing-backs and put Callum [Styles] straight in and Shacks [Jamie Shackleton] at right wing-back, I’ve seen him do it a lot at Leeds.

“Both of them were fantastic today, some of their link play and movement down the sides of the pitch caused Cardiff a lot of problems. They are quite a young and mobile team but we played around it really well and handled the ball, that’s not easy to do on the back of three defeats.

“We were the better side in the first half, we controlled the game, it was just whether we could get that goal. It was coming – we just had to stay patient

“It was a great header. He was unlucky not to start I just felt I needed to put Muzza back into the back three. I put him left wing-back at Burnley to see if we could make it a little bit more defensively secure. Today at home we’ve got to play attacking wing-backs and see if we can control the game and get into those areas. What he’s got to do is do what he did – come on and show that character and what he’s about. That little bit of desire to prove me wrong for not starting him. That’s what he’s done. He’s scored three goals and it’s a carbon copy of against Stoke – it’s a great header.

“For a 19-year-old, it’s not easy to do – to show that bravery to go and attack it.

“With Hutch’s injury, no doubt he’ll come into contention for the next game. He [Cresswell] has played in six or seven of the nine games so far, he’s done brilliant.”