Millwall boss: It was important we produced positive reaction to ‘bad’ loss at Plymouth Argyle

Millwall head coach Alex Neil felt his players produced a reaction to their midweek mauling at Plymouth Argyle in today’s 1-1 home draw against West Bromwich Albion.

Jake Cooper scored his third goal of the season to put the Lions into an early led in SE16.

But Darnell Furlong’s cross clipped off the leg of Millwall left-back Joe Bryan to wipe out that advantage before the interval.

Neil, while frustrated that other chances were not taken to take maximum points, could see far more to like from the display today than a shock heavy loss in Devon.

“I think it was important we played well,” said the Scot. “It was important after a bad defeat – the manner in which it happened – did not become anything more than that, if that makes sense? Because what you can do is chalk it off as a freak result. We were 2-0 down after nine minutes…how often does that happen?

“Then we end up having 65 per cent of the ball because they sit in. That has never been our strength. We are still quite far away from breaking down those type of teams down.

“But today our use of the ball was excellent – but it’s excellent when it’s against a team where they want to play and we want to play. That is different – because the game is quite open.

“When you just want to break someone down and they are hitting on the counter then the big spaces behind us aren’t where we’re at our strongest.

“I understanded after the match what needed fixing. It wasn’t difficult to fix it. Today we fixed it and the players performed vry well.”