Gary Rowett delighted with Millwall’s response against Rotherham

Posted Thursday, September 21, 2023 by PA

Millwall boss Gary Rowett heaped praise on his side’s positive response following a shaky start to the season after they convincingly beat Rotherham 3-0 at The Den.

The Lions produced the perfect response to weekend defeat to Leeds as Ryan Longman’s first-half strike put the hosts ahead before Zian Flemming and Tom Bradshaw each added second-half goals.

The win saw Millwall climb up the Sky Bet Championship table to 11th as Rotherham were left in 21st following a lacklustre away performance.

Rowett said: “We responded but we responded in a way that I just didn’t think we allowed Rotherham to create anything or really put us under pressure and that’s probably the bit that I liked the most about the performance.

“It’s never easy at the weekend when you play a game and you lose 3-0 in the game that I didn’t think we deserved to lose 3-0 in.

“But you’ve got to still come out and fight and then show a little bit of spirit and that’s what today was.

“We passed the ball, we were quite patient, we still look to go in behind and attack quickly.

“We kept it at the right times and I think that made it very difficult for Rotherham to build anything against us.

“Casper (De Norre) was excellent in that respect, he just kept receiving the ball, kept getting into intelligent positions and I thought he was outstanding tonight.

“For Zian and Brad [Tom Bradshaw], it’s nice for them to get on the scoresheet. Both of them were excellent for different reasons and in different ways.”

Matt Taylor rued defensive errors and admitted Rotherham have come second best all too often in the Championship so far, registering just four points from seven games.

Since a 1-0 win in 2014, Rotherham have failed to score a single goal in any of their subsequent trips to The Den and Millers boss Taylor rued his side’s inability to match Millwall’s strength.

Taylor said: “We weren’t where we needed to be to stand up to Millwall’s style. It was similar to the weekend really where we’re second best too often I’m afraid.

“We’ve got a problem with physicality; I have to start with my backline in relation to that.

“We’re looking for solutions, we didn’t quite have the glue to stick certain units together.

“I was actually quite pleased to get in at half-time at 1-0, despite a really good strike to go behind to.

“We tried to change a few things and in the second half, we started the brighter but that second goal is unfortunately where we are at the moment, it kind of came out of nothing, not an outstanding attack.

“We can give credit to the opposition, but we’re just too easy to play through and to score against.”