GARY Rowett said Daniel Ballard’s return was “massive” – as the on-loan Arsenal defender made his first start in more than three months to help Millwall to a 1-0 win at Reading.
Ballard went into the team to replace the injured Shaun Hutchinson and helped the Lions to a fifth clean sheet in their last eight games – the same number as in their first 23 Championship matches this season.
Rowett welcomed the side’s return to being tough to break down.
“That’s been important for us, we spoke about that before,” Rowett said. “Again, if you don’t score lots and lots of goals, then you have to make sure you’re defensively solid.
“We have looked a lot better defensively in the last period of games.
“And that’s sometimes my fault as well because early season people talk about more goals, we talked about more goals and taking risks being a little bit more open.
“The flip side to that, of course, is that sometimes there’s a little more space on the pitch where other teams can exploit.
“We’ve got the balance right at the moment and I’m certainly a lot more pleased with our performances defensively than I was previously.”
“If we lose Hutchy, someone like Dan Ballard coming back in was massive today.
“Losing Benno [Mason Bennett] and Benik [Afobe] comes back in, it felt a little bit like-for-like, it wasn’t a massive issue for us.
“It made the bench a little bit lighter but certainly it was good timing for those players to get back on the pitch and perform well.”
Image: Millwall FC