Millwall matchwinner labelled “invaluable” after he seals sixth straight win
Gary Rowett labelled Millwall’s matchwinner Jake Cooper as “invaluable” after he scored the decisive goal for the second week running.
The Lions beat Reading 1-0 at the Select Car Leasing Stadium on Saturday afternoon, thanks to a header from the centre-back.
Cooper also scored the winner against Sheffield United last week and has scored two goals in two games for the South London club.
Rowett said: “Adam [Barrett], Robbo [Paul Robinson] and the analysts work really hard on identifying the weaknesses of teams. Reading have conceded quite a lot of goals from set-pieces.
“Coops has really stepped up, it’s a good delivery from Jed and Coops rises the highest against his old club, great header. But he’s scored a few of them in recent weeks, he’s been invaluable.
“He was excellent today, Coops, as our captain showed a real leadership performance and to cap it off with a goal that wins the game is really nice.
“In the past five games, a set-piece has either won us the game or it’s taken a game away from the opposition. It’s important we do that.
“It’s the Championship, isn’t it? Sometimes you have to find different ways to win and in this little run that we’re on, we’ve certainly done that.
“We played really well at the start of it against QPR, some really good football. Then certainly Sheffield United last week and then the game today, we had to dig it out and defend well and defend in an organised manner.
“We knew that Reading maybe in the first half, they would be a little bit more compact defensively. We actually moved the ball quite well in the first half, up until the final third.
“We probably had the majority of the control apart from a couple of transitions they had. It was really just the final pass for us, trying to unlock that final little bit.
“Second half, we had a couple of good moments early on, after that we didn’t pass the ball well enough and there always going to throw a bit of caution to the wind but we defended.
“Coops made a fabulous block, Sav made a great block. Bart didn’t have that many saves to make. But you have to see those moments out and we did. It’s another big win for us.”
PICTURES: BRIAN TONKS