‘We didn’t defend properly’ – Millwall boss Gary Rowett left unhappy after 2-1 loss at Peterborough
BY ALEX GRACE
Gary Rowett was disappointed with Millwall’s performance after they squandered a 1-0 lead to lose 2-1 at Peterborough on Saturday afternoon.
The Lions went in front through Tom Bradshaw’s third goal in as many games – and his fifth of the season – but Jonson Clarke-Harris scored twice in the space of four minutes in the second half.
“Peterborough were fully deserving of their victory, ” said Rowett.
“We just feel short, again.
“It’s disappointing, that inconsistency. We worked a lot on being very good off the ball and out of possession today to allow us to then go and counter-attack. We do that quite early on in the game and look really, really dangerous and score a very good goal. We get to half-time, we’ve not played as well as we can, but we’re 1-0 up away from home.”
Clarke-Harris punished some woeful defending as Millwall came under intense pressure for much of the game.
“My only hope really was to defend properly, and we didn’t do that today,” said Rowett.
“The first one Clarke-Harris just ends up through on his own behind our back four which is not acceptable. The second one there is a cross in the box and there’s a deflection but he ends up free to make it 2-1.
“If you concede goals like that you’re not going to win any game.
Millwall struggled to deal with the presence of Siriki Dembele.
“In the second half we changed formation just to see if we could get a little bit more pressure on the ball higher up the pitch because I just felt as though Peterborough were getting into our defensive third too easily,” said Rowett. “But it was the same story.
“We couldn’t deal with Dembele. He was excellent. He just wriggled out of every single situation, and we didn’t defend well enough. You saw that first half. We kept making foul after foul after foul and allowed them to keep putting free-kicks into our box.
“There were a lot of things we didn’t do well enough today. We didn’t do the right things.”