After watching his side overcome relegated Peterborough United at the Den, giving Millwall slim hopes of snatching the final Sky Bet Championship play-off place, Gary Rowett was all smiles as he spoke with the media.

Millwall struggled to produce a sign shot on target in the first half but a change of formation in the second half sparked the Lions into life, with goals from George Saville, Benik Afobe and a Josh Knight own goal sealing the victory for the hosts.

Rowett felt his side produced some “scintillating” football are now just three points off Sheffield United and Luton Town in fifth and sixth going into the final game of the season next weekend. It is all to play off and Millwall have nothing to lose.

"We should have scored more"

“Other than adding a few more goals to it I thought the second-half performance was really good at times, it was quite scintillating with lots of chances, and to be honest with you we probably should have scored more goals.

We had some good opportunities, we missed some chances. There were balls flashing across the box and we needed someone to get on the end of it.

First half was how I felt the game would be. For 25, 30 minutes I thought we looked in control and played quite well to get into the final third but just couldn’t quite find that moment.

Benik was played in but couldn’t find that touch, Bradders [Tom Bradshaw] got in a good position but couldn’t quite find the touch round the keeper."

The second-half turnaround

“Second half was different, we changed formation at half-time. We put Lenny [Ryan Leonard] a little bit further forward, it allowed us to press higher and be a little bit more aggressive on the front foot in their half.

The second half was more or less all of ours. It was just how many goals we’d get.

I’m pleased with the performance, pleased with the result and to win 3-0, but we’re at a point of the season when of course a couple of goals might have made it more interesting.

We probably should have had that.”

On Jed Wallace coming off the bench

”I had a decision to make. If I start him in a tight game and had to bring him off after 60 minutes I’d just lose all that quality when we needed it.

So I did it the other way around, see if we could work hard and nick something early on and open the game up that way.

We had lots of quality to chase it late on and the fact I could bring on Jed, Mason [Bennett] with 40 minutes left to play was a clear sign we needed goals and were prepared to take a gamble to get those goals.

His end product, final delivery we know in this division or any division is absolutely top drawer.

It was nice to see him play such a big part and we’ll see what happens in the last game.”

On their play-off hopes

“I felt today we were going to need three or four goals, probably four goals which then left it with a four-goal swing.

Then you look at it and think if Bournemouth can beat Forest on Tuesday night and get promoted then maybe their mindset is slightly different in the last game. Fulham are playing Sheffield United and there’s always a chance Fulham can score more than one or two goals.

You basically needed to win the game and hope there’s a little bit of a swing. We can’t control that but we can know that anything can happen.”


Millwall face AFC Bournemouth in their final game of the season and need a significant turnaround to displace Luton Town or Sheffield United but stranger things have happened and with Gary Rowett at the Millwall helm, anything is possible.

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