Millwall boss reveals striker has suffered broken foot – and dismisses any suggestion of smash-and-grab win at Derby

BY ALEX GRACE

Gary Rowett did not feel that Derby County caused his side many problems in Millwall’s 1-0 win at Pride Park – and also revealed Matt Smith has suffered a broken foot.

The Lions secured their third successive 1-0 win at Pride Park thanks to Shaun Hutchinson’s header in first-half stoppage time.

That effort proved to be Millwall’s only attempt on target but Rowett didn’t feel as if it was a smash and grab result.

“No. It would’ve been if Derby had lots of chances – but I don’t think they did. I don’t think they really caused us major problems. They played in front of us a lot and had a lot of possession.”

Rowett was able to welcome back Murray Wallace to the starting 11 but also confirmed that Matt Smith has been added to the Lions’ lengthy injury list.

“It’s difficult when you come here and we’ve got players like Murray Wallace who we’ve had to chuck in today when he’s trained once in nine weeks and had a broken foot.

“Matt Smith wasn’t available today. He’s broken his foot and added to a lengthy injury list of nine or 10 players.

“We had to come here and just do what we had to do, which was stuff the game up a little bit and make it difficult. We watched a lot of Derby and we know they’ve scored a lot of set-piece goals but not that many from open play. They’ve not created too many chances, so we just felt as though if we let them play in front of us then they’d struggle to break us down.

“First half we were a little too passive. Their two midfielders dictated play against our three which wasn’t the plan. Our three were told to go up against them to try to make it really difficult and we didn’t do that with enough aggression. We didn’t use the ball well at all but in the second half we stepped up the pitch 10-15 yards to put a bit more pressure on Derby, to make it a little more difficult for them to get in our half easily.

“We had opportunities ourselves to transition and we used the ball a little bit better, we moved it enough to stop Derby from building too much pressure on us and obviously the goal just before half-time gave us something to protect.”

PHOTO: SEAN GOSLING