Millwall boss felt Coventry City unlucky not to win at Den – but also that officials denied Lions perfectly good goal
Gary Rowett felt his Millwall side were fortunate to get a point from today’s 1-1 draw against Coventry City.
George Saville cancelled out Victor Gyokeres’ opener for the Sky Blues as the Lions had to settle for a third straight Championship draw.
And Rowett was in rueful mood about Keith Stroud ruling out Tom Bradshaw’s goal – with even Sky Blues boss Mark Robins admitting it looked perfectly legitimate.
The Lions chief said: “If I look at the last three games, the last two games we looked stronger physically than our opponents and deserved more than two draws. Today I changed formation three times and it didn’t make any difference – we could not get enough energy into our team. We were fortunate to get a draw today.
“There is a big moment the officials get wrong. I’ve seen it back four or five times and Matt Smith is onside – and Tom Bradshaw is onside. So it’s irrelevant who is interfering with who. But they are moments you sometimes have to accept that are not all going to be right.
“I’ve also got to give credit to Coventry. They are an excellent side, the way they have evolved over the last two or three years. You could see the likes of Hamer and O’Hare cause so many problems just behind the front and Gyokeres gives them that little bit of presence they possibly haven’t had previously.
“I was always worried. It’s not an excuse but when you get back or four or five o’clock in the Thursday morning after a long trip from Swansea, where we’ve worked incredibly hard to win the game at the end, I knew there would be a cost today. I changed two players but that didn’t change the energy in the side.
“Bart [Bialkowski] ended up taking a 20-minute ice bath at 3.30 in the morning at the training ground to try and recover. That’s the lengths the players have had to go to. If you haven’t got enough time to properly recover then you have to do what you can.
“Just a lack of options has made today’s game a step too far. The first goal is a really poor goal to concede. Gyokeres works incredibly hard and is aggressive to try and create the opportunity – but I would expect our centre-halves to be as equally aggressive to stop it.
“It’s been symptomatic of a few goals we’ve conceded – just too easy. It was a soft goal. We score a very good goal ourselves where Sav arrives late. Good play from Jed.
“Apart from the goal that shouldn’t have been disallowed, we didn’t do enough. I don’t think the quality was there enough. We didn’t have enough sustained attacks. There wasn’t much in it first half but in the second half we couldn’t create enough energy to give us a chance of going to win the game.
“They deserved to win the game. Sometimes you have to hang in when you’re not playing well – do the right things. There is a feeling of helplessness on the sideline because you know the issue and there isn’t really anything you can do to change it.”