GARY Rowett issued a scathing verdict on his side’s away performances after Saturday’s 2-1 defeat to Blackburn Rovers.
The Lions suffered their sixth defeat of the Championship campaign at Ewood Park, meaning that they are just under half way to the total number of losses that they suffered in the league last season [13].
Four of those defeats have come on the road, with Millwall yet to pick up a single win from their five away matches. Their only draw came against Swansea City, a result which was salvaged by two own-goals in stoppage time. They also have the second worst away record in the entire division, adding extra pressure onto Wednesday’s trip to Rotherham United.
For Rowett, there was a real sense of déjà vu in Lancashire, with the Lions manager highlighting that individual errors ended up costing his side once again.
“I think it was pretty much like a lot of our away games this season,” Rowett told NewsAtDen.
“I look back to last season and there were a lot of times where we went away from home and didn’t play particularly great but we ended up winning the game, drawing the game or getting something out of it in a few of them.
“Certainly this season, at the moment, we’ve been really punished. Every time we make a mistake it always feels like it ends up in easy goal for the opposition. If you look at both the goals, if you stop the footage probably a second before the mistake, you’d say ‘is that team going to score?’ and you’d go ‘absolutely not, how are they going to score?’
“We just seem to be shooting ourselves in the foot too easily. That’s our frustration, that’s everyone’s frustration I think, that teams are not having to work that hard to beat us.
“This division is brutal, I said that to the players afterwards. You make mistakes and you’ll lose games, that’s what it is. In games where we don’t get chances, in games where we don’t create anything, then as a manager you sit there and think you’ve either made a mistake with the team or with the tactics, or whatever it is.
“When you get moments when you’re having a decent amount of the game, I think they’re the frustrating ones because they seem to be individual errors at the moment that we need to certainly eradicate.”
There was certainly a feeling that Millwall missed a significant opportunity in Lancashire over the weekend. Benik Afobe had a chance to score after a poor Blackburn free-kick gave the visitors an opportunity on the counter, although he blasted his shot wide of the target. Zian Flemming and Andreas Voglsammer also had chances for a late leveller, although neither were able to test goalkeeper Thomas Kaminski.
“You look at Flem’s one early on where we ended up pressing the goalkeeper and winning it, we create a three vs. one situation and we can’t quite find the right pass,” Rowett explained.
“Again, those are the moments where we have to punish other teams and we’re not quite doing that. We’re not working hard enough or we’re not making the right decisions to make the margins go our way.
“At home, we’ve tended to win tight games and make the margins go our way. Away from home, we’re losing tight games because we’re not putting enough into the game overall. That’s probably the frustration.
“I said to the players after the game, if we had any semblance of even an average away form, we’d be in and around the top six, fact. But at the moment, we’re not, and that’s the reason why.
“We’re determined to do something about it. We can moan all we want, we can talk about it all we want, but I think every away game is an opportunity to show a little bit of character and come out of this little away run that we’re on. We’ve got to go and take it.”
Photo: Millwall FC