GARY Rowett was once again delighted that his side were able to come out on top in a tight game after his side beat Swansea City 2-1 at The Den.
The Lions came up against a possession-heavy side and struggled in the first half, but goals from Charlie Cresswell and Andreas Voglsammer shortly after the break gave them a comfortable advantage.
The visitors struck back through Matt Grimes shortly before the hour-mark, setting up another testing finale where Rowett’s men came out on top. He explained that a tactical switch helped them to attack the game in the second half, highlighting how delighted he was to hold out for yet another win in SE16.
“Swansea dominate the possession stats in the division,” the manager said after the game.
“They make the most passes in the division, that’s what they do. It’s probably a little bit of our Kryptonite in the way that we want to go up against teams, press, get the crowd going and make it a little bit of carnage. I think the challenge is that they stop you doing it.
“You go to press and they play around it, you think you’ve got someone and they play out of it. They’re very, very good at going it. Every time I’ve played Swansea in the last three or four years, it’s been the same kind of game. It’s been frustrating, it’s been hard to play against, it’s been low key in terms of tackles and that little bit of physicality that we like.
“I think we found that tough first off we had a few moments but found it a little bit tough. I made a change at half-time. I decided I just felt as though I’d rather go up against them a little bit more, take a bit of a gamble and lose the game that way if that was what we had to do. We needed to get a little bit of life into the game and inject a little bit of atmosphere into it, so change it to a 4-3-3 meant we went up against them a little bit more.
With a front four, we played a little bit narrower and a little bit higher. I thought that, for 20 minutes in the second half, not only did we use the ball a little better, but I think we started to start to press them better. We started to stop them playing.
“Once you start to put them under a little bit of pressure and then a dynamic shifts in the game, it’s not as easy to keep the ball and it’s not as easy to play your way out.
“We scored two different types of goals. I think, in the first one, Cressy, in a lot of bodies, does really well to to prod it home. It looks like it takes a little deflection when you watch it back. I think he’s hit Bradders on the calf, so I think he’s claiming that as well. I think that might be one that gets appealed.
“Then the second goal is great play by Zian to break free down the down the left-hand side. He plays a lovely little pass into George Honeyman. He’s aware enough to find Vogi. It’s Vogi’s shot with a small deflection, it just wrong-foots the ‘keeper a little bit to go 2-0 up.
“At that point, I actually thought that it probably looked like it took the stuffing out of Swansea. Then they go and get a deflected goal themselves, which is going miles wide. It hits Manning on the knee and wrong-foots Long. All of a sudden it’s back to back to square one where we’re now chasing, we’re now finding it hard to press and we’re now having to drop in.
“They make it a really difficult game and fair play to them, because it was a really tough winter night. But sometimes, in these type of games, you’ve got to find a way to win it.
‘At this stage of the season, we found a way to win, and that’s that’s an admirable trait to have.”
Photo: Millwall FC