Four takeaways from Millwall’s 2-1 defeat at Wigan Athletic – Lions left anxiously watching other results after they fail to deliver at DW Stadium

Millwall lost 2-1 at Wigan Athletic on Saturday.

Here are Richard Cawley’s takeaways from the match.

GRINDING IT OUT

To say that some of the teams chasing the final two play-off places are making hard work of it is an understatement.
And it certainly applies to Millwall.

Luckily it also applies to Blackburn Rovers, Preston North End and Norwich City.

But there are only so many times you can’t deliver a result and expect to get away with it.

Millwall dropped to sixth on Saturday evening with Coventry City climbing above them. And West Bromwich Albion, in eighth, and 10th-placed Sunderland can knock Gary Rowett’s side out of the last prized slot if either of them is victorious in their lunchtime fixture today.

Blackburn’s game in hand on the South Londoners is on Tuesday – at home to a Burnley side that slipped up 2-1 at home to QPR yesterday.
It means Millwall fans are once again going to be glued to results over the coming days.

NO DOUBT IN MY MIND

Except there is. Sorry, the reason for that sub-heading is that the Wigan pre-match music – and also immediately after their side’s victory yesterday – was The Monkees’ ‘I’m a Believer’.

Millwall didn’t play like a side with a whole lot of confidence or belief at the DW Stadium. It was a flat performance. The dynamism came from James McClean, Christ Tiehi, Callum Lang and Will Keane as the Latics played with an urgency that mirrored the fact their Championship status was on the line.

The Lions have taken 11 points from their last 10 matches compared to 18 points (won five and drawn three) in their 10 fixtures before that.

CREATIVITY AN ISSUE

Millwall were largely ineffectual yesterday and their only moment of fluidity led to the goal.

Callum Styles, started on the left wing in preference to Andreas Voglsammer, slipped the ball down the side of the penalty area with Tom Bradshaw’s low cross forced home by George Saville with 30 minutes on the clock.

You expected that to settle the Lions down after a subdued start – but it didn’t.

Oliver Burke whipped in a fine low cross which Bradshaw and a sliding Styles could not get on a touch on before the interval. And a self-inflicted Wigan mistake also handed Scott Malone a shooting chance which was blocked by the legs of Jamie Jones.

Those were the only two chances after Saville struck.

Wigan carried the greater threat in the second period and had the pace to counter on the Lions for Thelo Aasgaard’s 84th-minute winner.
Keane produced a perfect release pass for Lang to break away on a counter, the Latics’ number 19 teeing up the Norwegian U20 international to finish emphatically past George Long.

BLACKPOOL ROCKS

Millwall are going to need to show what they are made of at Bloomfield Road on Friday night.

I’d back this group of players to produce a response, because they have done it so often over the past couple of years and that’s why they have managed to at least be in the play-off conversation in recent seasons.

They have lost back-to-back league matches for the first time since August and now the pressure, if it wasn’t already being felt, is cranked up even more.

But it’s exactly the kind of scenario when these players have performed, especially if they find themselves back as the underdogs for a top-six finish when they arrive in Lancashire.

I can still remember Millwall being set to miss out on the League One play-offs until Shaun Hutchinson’s 85th-minute header earned them a 4-3 win at Bristol Rovers on the final day of the campaign.

They crept in the play-offs last time. It doesn’t matter, again, how they do it this time.

The reality is that they are probably going to have to win both of their matches to stand a chance of it happening.