Millwall boss Rowett breaks down his team’s display as they open Championship campaign with a solid point
Gary Rowett was pleased with Millwall taking a point at QPR yesterday – and is confident they will get stronger as the Championship campaign continues.
Jed Wallace fired the Lions ahead in west London before Rob Dickie crashed home a 30-yard strike just after the half-hour mark.
Rowett said: “It was a good start for us. We were really, really bright for the first 20-25 minutes. We imposed our game, and a lot of things we’ve done pre-season, on QPR – which is not easy to do here. We hit the bar, scored a good goal and had another chance where Scottie [Malone] put Sav through one-v-one but the ball just wouldn’t sit down quickly enough.
“And then maybe Johansen just started to dictate the game a little bit after our goal and after that period. We needed to get closer and disrupt that flow that he started to produce for QPR.
“We certainly tried to but the likes of Maikel and Sav have only played 60 minutes in the last two or three weeks due to covid. I felt we ran out of energy just when we most needed it.
“We defended really well. It was an excellent goal from us, a great strike by Jed – well-worked from a throw in. A great strike from Dickie as he stepped out past out strikers. I felt as though we should have closed it down quicker – we had an opportunity to come out and we didn’t do that. I think it was Maikel, unlike him, to get out quicker and stop the shot. But it’s a great strike.
“They had spells on the ball in the second half where they started to back us up. We had good spells where we caused them one or two problems – Sav had another good header close to their box. Maikel Kieftenbeld had a great shot which was narrowly over.
“I’m not displeased. Lovely to be part of a proper game of football. Lovely to see our fans out there and nice to give them little bits of a performance. We’ll get better as the games go on.”
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If the manager was not surprised that two of the three key midfield players were unlikely to be fit enough for 90 minutes – as he has said – (after all it was always going to be a high tempo local London Derby – first game back in front of a full house) why did he pick them an not even have a younger fitter home grown MF player – in the shape of Thommo on the bench??
Its a bit of Sunday morning basic football management – but I guess he just wants him out