GARY Rowett acknowledged some of his players couldn’t raise their game again against Stoke City after pushing their physical efforts to the limit in their eight-match unbeaten run.
But the Millwall manager also explained why he is not concerned that sequence was ended before the international break.
Rowett picked out Scott Malone, Jed Wallace and George Saville as players who had posted big running numbers in the 2-0 win over Huddersfield Town.
That was a monumental effort that ended the Terriers’ 17-game unbeaten run in the Championship.
Ironically – or perhaps because of fatigue – Wallace missed a penalty and Saville scored an own goal in the 2-0 defeat to Stoke last weekend.
Some of Millwall’s players were given until Thursday this week off, with others reporting to Calmont Road depending on their level of involvement recently and as they work on their fitness after returns from injury.
Rowett took a rare chance to head back to his home in Derbyshire for a short break.
Millwall go into the last eight games just four points off sixth. Rowett revealed he had a points target in mind to reach before the last international break of the season. The Lions were 11 points off the play-off places after three consecutive league defeats in January.
Rowett welcomed the chance for a breather before the final push, hopefully for the top six.
“Everyone has needed it. We all knew it was coming and everyone was working hard towards it. It’s quite nice to have the break,” Rowett said.
“We’ll still be working. The staff will go to games at the weekend and we’ll be in for a couple of days training Thursday and Friday. Some of the lads who haven’t done as much will have a little bit of remote work to do.
“I set myself – I didn’t say it to the players or the staff – but I set myself a points tally when it was about six games to go before the international break.
“It looked at that point as though it was going to be a really desperate attempt just to get some results.
“We just needed to pick points up and if I’m being honest the players have certainly exceeded what I thought we would get in that time.
“And that’s why after Stoke, it would have been so easy for me to come in and say that we’ve performed poorly, we’ve not played well. But there were so many reasons why. It was at the end of a run of games, it was probably after our most energetic performance of the season.
“If you’d seen some of the numbers after Wednesday [against Huddersfield] – Scotty Malone, Jed, Sav, people like that – they were the ones really, well, most of the players, but there were four or five who just couldn’t physically go again.
“And I had to accept that. I don’t like to accept it but I had to accept it. I think the players have certainly earned the break after one game when they couldn’t quite do it.”
Millwall have something of a reset ahead of their next match at Luton Town on April 2. Over their last nine games, as well as going unbeaten in eight they won five in a row and kept five consecutive clean sheets.
Rowett added: “Most of what you guys [in the media] have to ask, we’re always going to be asked regardless of what happens. So if we’re on an unbeaten run it’s how long can that unbeaten run go. If we’re on a losing run it’s how do we stop the losing run. If it’s a winning run it’s how do we maintain it.
“I don’t get too bogged down by what the run of games is. Literally, you just take each game as it comes. We can beat the likes of Huddersfield but then we lose to Stoke.
“It doesn’t matter where you play or what run you’re on. What matters is trying to do everything you can in that one game to win it and then moving on very quickly to the next game.
“That’s exactly how we work.”
Image: Millwall FC