AG's Football Reports

Gary Rowett was pleased with his side’s commitment and desire after they ran out 1-0 winners against Huddersfield Town. 

Scott Malone scored the winner against his former club after just four minutes as Millwall registered their fifth away win of the season.

“There’s been a few games recently where we’ve come off the pitch and not given our all, said Rowett. “We spoke about it as a group, we spoke about what it takes to win a game sometimes and the bare minimum that it requires. Incredible effort, incredible desire, incredible commitment and concentration particularly at a place like this because, it’s a difficult pitch, it was a difficult surface and conditions.

What Huddersfield are really good at is passing the ball, getting you out into areas you don’t want to be in, playing around you and utilising the space when they get it, we had to be defensive today. We had to do that side properly and I was prepared to do that, make it look a little bit gritty and it was all going to be down to if we had enough quality on the turnover. At home they are a really good side, they have very unpredictable ways of opening a team up and what we knew was we had to be deeper, we knew we had to be compact a bit like Forest at times but I thought today we did it with far more diligence we did it with a much better concentration effort.

Millwall remained solid and stuck to their shape well as they conceded very few chances against a side that had only failed to score at home once before this game.

“I thought when we used the ball well we actually got into some really good positions, naturally as a team you’re going to fade a little bit in terms of energy. I had to make four substitutions at once which I can’t ever remember doing but I just felt at that point we needed legs. I thought we needed energy, we needed players to come on and do the same thing. I thought it was a monumental effort and it was a result that we all knew we needed and what the players have done is stepped up to the plate, now we we’ve got to do is back it up.

Consistency has been a problem for the Lions this season and Rowett admitted his side must back up this performance.

“A number of times we’ve played well or we’ve done the right things and then we’ve not done it in the next game. Of course we’ve got an FA Cup game at the weekend but the game after that we’ve got to go again and we’ve got to be prepared to put it all on the line which is again for me, if you’re a fan at home that is the bare minimum you expect from a Millwall player and if i’m being honest, we haven’t done that enough this season, today we did and guess what? We get a result which is a 1-0 win.”