Birmingham boss Lee Bowyer: We didn’t compete well enough with Millwall’s players
Lee Bowyer pulled no punches about Birmingham City’s 3-1 defeat at The Den against Millwall on Saturday afternoon.
Murray Wallace and Tom Bradshaw gave the Lions a two-goal lead at the break before George Evans made sure of the result after Troy Deeney had pulled one back for the Blues.
Bowyer said: “It is a difficult place to come, a very hostile crowd. All the players yesterday [were told] if you come here and don’t fight and compete, then you are going to lose the game.
“If you don’t stick together as a group, you will lose the game and we were too soft in the first half. We allowed them to win every second ball and the basics of the game, set-pieces, not good enough marking. It’s not like us.
“We’re normally better than that. We carried too many in the first half.
“We had to be braver once we scored, and we didn’t. I’m thinking ‘we’re on top here’. We had a couple of good chances before we scored. Get that second one, and we would have probably gone on and won it.
“For some reason, we stopped doing the things that were hurting them in the first 15 minutes of the second half.
“That’s Millwall’s strength [set-pieces]. They’re a big side and you have to compete, but first 45 we were soft….very soft. Not good. You can’t give them a two-goal headstart.
“You don’t get 10 clean sheets out of 20 games with defending like that. Even the third goal, he ran off the back of Riley, he switched off for a split second, that seemed to be us today – second best.“
Great stuff LB being wise after the event. Next week we will have the same old players who lack the spirit and commitment they are paid to show and who regularly frustrate you and the fans. As usual we are now relying on the January transfer window to keep our heads above water. Is it dejavu again with a new manager for the last few games to keep us safe?