I love this team and the manager; the passion and determination that they have is immense. I really hope we stick together and push for promotion next season because we are capable of it.
What a great Easter weekend; I watched an amazing, tense match on Friday, where we drew 4-4 to Sunderland, and I witnessed a hard-fought win at home today, with 20,068 other fans. If we are beating these teams, how are we not near the playoffs? Millwall are 5th in table and Sunderland are 10th, whilst we are stationary in 16th, and we have chalked up four points out of six. I do not think that we will get a top six finish, however, I am optimistic that we will have a strong finish. Could this be the start of a little run, despite having five games left? I hope so.
The atmosphere in the stadium was back and we were able to keep the visiting fans quiet. I have heard stories about Millwall–they cost us millions of pounds in damage in 2009–and they have a bad reputation. But, we kept them silent and fortunately they did not do anything rash.
The line-up was unchanged since our last game against Sunderland on Friday, save for Malcolm Ebiowei replacing Adama Traore. That’s right, Rosenior benched one of our star players. I am agnostic about Ebiowei; he is good at one-on-ones and he, most of the time, wins them, but, on the other hand, he is too shy and when the ball is loose near him, he never goes to it, which is bloody frustrating. The rest of the team was how it was last time. Karl Darlow started in goal; Lewie Coyle, Alfie Jones, Jacob Greaves and Sean McLoughlin were at the back; Jean Seri and Regan Slater were below them; Malcolm Ebiowei, Dimotrios Pelkas and Allahyar Sayyadmaneh were above Ozan Tufan, who was up front on his own.
I do not understand why he started with Coyle as he picked up an injury during the game on Friday and last time Liam played him after an injury, against Burnley, we struggled at the back and lost 3-1. He should have started with Elder just in case it happened again. Nonetheless, I had no problems with the starting eleven.
The first period dragged, to be honest; nothing was happening and both teams were just passing it around. Therefore, I will keep it brief. Millwall could have been out of sight in this half as they had some dangerous opportunities, which they should have put to bed.
We kept most of the possession, especially for the first 25 minutes, but we could not do anything with the ball. We struggled to form an attack on the wings, which we always do; however, Millwall studied us and cut us off. And we just could not get behind their back line. It was a completely different style of play, compared with our last game.
Our best chance of the half came during the period of dominance; a well-earned corner gave Ebiowei time and space to send a deep cross towards the back post, where it landed on, unmarked, Tufan’s head; however, he put it over the crossbar.
After wasting a lot of time and not being productive, Millwall turned things around and in the 27th minute they had their first major chance. Tom Bradshaw dragged the ball back from the right, which played Burke into a dangerous area; he struck the ball well, but Darlow made himself large and snuffed out the threat. Our keeper has been superb since we signed him and he has prevented us from conceding a lot of goals.
Then, three minutes later, The Lions could not have gone closer to scoring; George Honeyman, a former player for us who left at the end of last season, found Mitchel on the overlap and his cross found Burke in a good position. He volleyed the ball towards goal, however, thankfully, instead of smashing the back of the net, it shook the crossbar and we cleared it to safety. The funny part about this was when the away fans to the right of me started cheering and we were able to laugh about something that could have been costly.
For the rest of the half, nothing happened and it turned a bit scrappy. I have to say thay Millwall looked like they wanted to take the three points more than we did, however, we were in control of the game, but not taking advantage of this gift.
The first half ended goalless.
Something needed to be changed, especially in attack, and we needed to bring on somebody who had a bit more energy at the back. In fact, Rosenior made three changes and that showed what he thought about the performance. Adama Traore replaced Malcolm Ebiowei, which should have been the case from the start, Callum Elder replaced Jacob Greaves, who was brought on to add more energy to the team, and Ryan Longman replaced Dimitrios Pelkas, who did not perform at his best. I love how Rosenior is not wary about making changes and he knows what he is doing. Shota rarely made substitutions and when he did, they were poor choices.
The second period was much better for us; we kept the dominance that we had from the start and began to do more with the ball. In fact, in the 55th minute, Longman had a great opportunity to put us in front; he received the ball on the right wing, where he made a fabulous run into the box and shot, but the ball went wide of the post. Maybe if he looked up and altered his body, he could have put that in the back of the net.
Millwall fought afterwards, but they were a shadow of the team that had most of the chances in the first half and they were outplayed by us. Also, it was their time to find it hard to create anything. I have to say that this was due to how strong our defence was. I am really pleased with this because I used to criticise the defence before the World Cup, but now I am confident and I do not get nervous when our opponents are on the attack.
Then, after holding the ball for a while, we took the lead, which we deserved. In the 70th minute, Traore received the ball from Sayyadmanesh and turned. He seemed to have had a lot to do from this position, 20 yards out, but he was able to twist into a good position and he struck the ball into the bottom corner of the net. This was the Mali international’s first goal for us and he has been an incredible signing. We had to wait ages until he was allowed to play, but he is here now and he is helping us out in some tough games.
The final 20 minutes dragged and my heart rate was really high; was I going to see a win, which I have not seen in five games? I hoped so, but we still had a lot to do.
We did not seem to drop off after scoring, which is usually the case, and in the 80th minute we went defensive. I was worried about this because sometimes it does not go as planned and Millwall are a top team that are capable of coming back. We brought on Greg Docherty for Ozan Tufan and Xavier Simons for Ryan Longman.
Millwall started to attack and on a few occasions they broke our back line and got the ball into the box. We could have easily gone behind if it were not for Karl Darlow, who made three superb saves to keep the score as it was. However, towards the last minute, the visitors did not even threaten and we had a chance to double our advantage; a loose ball came from a corner, which landed at Slater’s feet. He drove with the ball to the edge of the box, however, he was dispossessed before he could get his shot off. After this, we were just clearing any ball that came our way and the referee eventually blew his whistle.
So, that is four games without a win for Millwall, however, they are still in the top six. For us, we have moved up to 16th and we are 10 points from 6th, which, for me, is out of reach with 15 points left up for grabs.
Today we showed that we are still going to fight and we will give any of our opponents a good game. I hope this is true as we have two away games coming up, Blackburn on Saturday and Middlesborough the Wednesday after that, which I am travelling to, and I have not seen us win on the road since 2 January. Also, these opponents are both fighting for playoffs, but so were Millwall and we beat them. Let’s hope we can do what we did today in our next match and get those three points.