Gary Rowett provides insight into why 5-2-3 formation suits Millwall on the road

BY RICHARD CAWLEY

Gary Rowett once again hailed the effectiveness of a 5-2-3 formation as Millwall collected maximum points on the road at Bristol City last night.

The Lions boss had gone to that system as he looked to end the club’s poor points return away and was rewarded with a 1-0 success over Swansea City.

Shaun Hutchinson’s rib injury ruled him out of the 1-1 draw at Birmingham City but the former Fulham and Motherwell man was back for the trip to Ashton Gate as they switched back to the formation that had paid off in Wales.

Rowett insisted he was never going to go to Bristol looking to park the bus.

“We’ve got a good team and good players – my argument is that there’s no point coming here to hang on and being negative,” he said. “We didn’t have the players to play it [5-2-3] at Birmingham, so we had to return to a different formation and probably should’ve won the game.

“We were excellent at Swansea the first time we played the formation and we flicked back to 5-2-3. It’s testament to the players. It’s a great formation if you can work the ball well. You could see it first half – some fantastic play, some quick, attacking play.

“It’s a system where you can get your shape well but you can also break and get into good attacking positions quite easily.

“Particularly away from home it suits Mahlon [Romeo] and Jed [Wallace]. Jon Dadi played it really, really well today. I thought we were excellent.”