Millwall have lost consecutive games in the league for the first time since September 2019 following a 2-0 defeat to West Brom on Sunday afternoon at the Den as the Lions failed to close the gap on the play off positions.
Filip Krovinovic curled in from the edge of the box to give West Brom a deserved lead before Dara O’Shea headed in Kamil Grosicki’s corner to seal a comfortable win for the Baggies.
Both teams started the game brightly as both sides were presented with good opportunities to break the deadlock in the first half sides as Jed Wallace fired his effort over the bar for the Lions when he perhaps should have hit the target, while West Brom midfielder Kyle Bartley also missed a gilt-edged opportunity for the visitors from close range.
Pressure
West Brom were starting to push to score the first goal of the game and eventually the pressure was too much for Millwall when West Brom finally scored the opening goal of the game through Filip Krovinovic in the 42nd minute after an audacious first touch to deceive the Millwall defender and curl in a brilliant shot from 25 yards out into the bottom right hand corner past the despairing Bartosz Bialkowski.
The Baggies continued to press and push men forward in an attempt to increase their lead after the break. Wales international Hal Robson-Kanu almost doubled the Baggies’ lead in the 48th minute, as he saw his effort deflected just over the bar from close range just before Callum Robinson fired his effort just wide of the post. West Brom were denied once again when Bialkowski was forced into making a brilliant save to thwart Matheus Pereira.
Significant
The second goal eventually came for the away side in the 84th minute when O’Shea beat his marker from a corner and head home at the near post to score his first ever goal for the football club and seal a significant victory in their hunt for automatic promotion.
Millwall manager Gary Rowett expressed his disappointment following his side’s 2-0 defeat to West Brom which left his side five points behind the play off positions.
“You have to first give credit to our opponents, they were very, very good and showed alongside Leeds that they’re a top side and make it difficult.
Rowett told the BBC: “We’re the sort of side that has to start well and at tempo and we’ve got to be at our best to make games like this difficult for any opponent. We didn’t do that, we started a bit naively, we made the game really nice for some reason early on which was quite surprising and that set the tempo for what was to come.
‘Composure’
Rowett told BBC Radio London: “They opened us up too easily for my liking, we weren’t solid enough and made it difficult from the start. We didn’t really get out of that, we had a few moments where Jed had a few half-chances, but didn’t play with enough composure or quality to make it a 10 to 15-minute spell. It was a disappointing performance today for different reasons.”
Millwall now sit 10th in the EFL Championship table, remaining outside the play off positions and will now go up against promotion chasing West London rivals Fulham at the Den on Wednesday evening who sit 3rd in the table.
