MILLWALL boss Gary Rowett felt his side were denied a “blatant” penalty in the 1-1 draw against Blackburn Rovers – but felt his side should have seen the game out instead of giving the visitors a soft chance from which they equalised.
Jed Wallace scored his second goal in two league games to give the Lions the lead in the 64th minute but Ben Brereton Diaz levelled 12 minutes later.
Rowett thought Jake Cooper was fouled by Brereton Diaz or Sam Gallagher in the box, but it was again a case of another penalty not given after the Lions were denied several last season.
“It’s disappointing because if you look at the game we’ve had 60 per cent possession, we’ve had about 18 shots, they’ve had one shot the whole game,” Rowett said. “One shot and they score. It’s a frustrating game.
“Tony’s [Mowbray] got a good side, they worked hard as a team to make it difficult for us to play through them at points in the game, which teams are going to do. They sat off and allowed us to see if we could try and open them up.
“I thought we looked comfortable without having that extra little bit of zip about us to open those spaces. But when we did, when we got the ball to the wing-backs and got good balls into the box and attacked with a bit more quality we got into some really good areas.
“Tony changed his formation at half-time to match ours to see if they could get a foothold in the game. They had five or 10 minutes but we stepped up again.
“We scored a very, very good goal and then should see the game out. We should have had a penalty with Coops, I think it’s Brereton or Gallagher who grabs him around the waist and pulls him to the ground. The referee is five yards away. I’d expect him to see that and give it, it was a blatant penalty.
“So one or two of those moments are disappointing but I thought we had enough of the game to score again or at the very least to defend properly. But we conceded a very poor goal from a wide free-kick when we allow Brereton to get a free header. You can’t do that at this level, you can’t allow them one opportunity.
“In my opinion, in that one moment, essentially, we lost ourselves a great opportunity to get three points.”
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