Millwall boss Neil: Five-minute spell proved so costly – we should have beaten West Brom

Alex Neil was left to rue a five-minute first-half spell in Millwall’s 1-1 home draw against West Bromwich Albion today at The Den.

Femi Azeez arrowed a shot narrowly wide of the right post before Jake Cooper put the hosts ahead.

It was Azeez who supplied the cross, moments after home appeals for a handball in the box. The quality on the delivery meant it only needed a strong connection from close range – and captain Cooper duly obliged for his third goal of the season.

Millwall produced a strong opening 25 minutes of front-footed play, so West Brom’s equaliser came as a shock.

Darnell Furlong’s low ball in came off the luckless Joe Bryan and into the net. It was the former Fulham defender’s second own goal in the space of four days. But Bryan had a strong performance, completely nullifying former Lions winger Jed Wallace as well as producing one excellent penalty box challenge on Jayson Molumby after Japhet Tanganga had given the ball away.

Grady Diangana struck the underside of the crossbar as Millwall slept on a short corner.

Millwall controlled long stretches of the second half but could not find the finishing touch. Tristan Crama blazed over at the back post from another tasty Azeez delivery and Luke Cundle was unable to punish Baggies keeper Joe Wildsmith for only parrying out Camiel Neghli’s shot.

Neghli, a club record signing from Sparta Rotterdam in the winter window, was denied by Wildsmith’s instinctive push over. Wildsmith also produced a one-handed save to prevent Cooper doubling his tally.

The Lions are unbeaten in their last eight league matches against West Brom, winning two and drawing six.

Asked about their being a costly two-minute wobble which hurt his side, Neil said: “Yeah, I agree with that – I think that’s fair.

“When I described it to the players I probably said five minutes, instead of two, so I took a wee bit more away from them.

“We started the game really well. We deserved our goal. It was just a five-minute spell – it starts with a free-kick we put straight into the keeper’s hands. They break down the right and we don’t cover the space, which we should do. We end up bundling the ball into our own net and I end up thinking – really? It was based on nothing. There was nothing happening in the game. There was no tactical element to it.

“There was probably a little bit of lack of confidence at that point. The crowd started to groan a little bit. I think they see what we see – what have you just done? Why? You have let the game drift when you don’t need to. It was a frustration.

“But we settled them down at half-time. Although they had played really well I was probably more focused on the part we didn’t do well. I asked them to get out second half and try to fix it, play as well as you can, as they did do for large parts of the first half. They did that and probably even more. We had three or four really good chances in the last 15 minutes to force the game.

“It was starting to dwindle a little bit in terms of energy. The two lads came on (George Saville) and George Honeyman) and changed it in our favour. They showed their energy, landed on things and worked it wide. We gained a bit of momentum off that and the crowd got behind us.

“Out of the four, maybe five, opportunities you hope we take at least one of them. They deserved it and then we’d be talking about a really good performance and really good win. We’re still talking about a really good performance but just a bit unfortunate we didn’t manage to get across the line.”

Bryan’s own goal saw Furlong’s cross come off his standing leg and roll into Lukas Jensen’s net.

Asked about the tackle on Molumby, Neil said: “I’m glad you said that because that was going to be my next rebuttal.

“For that little bit that you do and you think ‘yeah, you’re better than that’ – and we know he is better than that – the next thing is that he makes basically a game-saving challenge at the end coming across.

“Players go out to do their best every game, don’t you? You go out with your most motivation and determination to do well for your team and sometimes things transpire that you can’t really effect that much.

“What I said to Joe is that I don’t mind the one you clip into the keeper’s hands – that can happen to anyone. But then we need to recover after that – get back behind the ball and reset to do the next action well. Sometimes players maybe get a little bit of a hard time unfortunately when I don’t think they deserve them.

“He definitely redeemed himself with that tackle late in the game for us.”