Millwall manager Gary Rowett: Every team is feeling the heat in Championship

Gary Rowett reckons that all of the sides chasing the final Championship play-off spot are feeling the pressure.

Millwall moved to within two points of sixth-placed Cardiff City with a superb strike by Ryan Leonard sealing a 1-0 win at Hull City today.

The Lions bounced back from a subdued showing on Wednesday which saw them lose 2-0 at home to Middlesbrough.

Play-off rivals Cardiff City lost 2-0 at Fulham last night while Derby County, one of the division’s form teams in 2020, lost 3-1 at home to red-hot Brentford.

Rowett said: “We’re seeing at this stage – and we’re finding it in a couple of games – that it’s really difficult to win games at this stage because everyone is nervous.

“Everyone all over the league are fighting for their lives. People are starting to get desperate.

“It’s been tough. Cardiff and Derby have lost their last two – really good sides with a lot of quality in their teams and they’ve had little wobbles.

“We’re no different to that. We’ve found it hard to back up the Charlton performance – the one after that against Middlesbrough was disappointing.

“We’ve come and dug out a real professional win today. We’re at a point where you’ve got to win games to stay in the mix because other teams are going to.

“It makes it exciting. The team deserve an awful lot of credit in terms of where they’ve come from to even be in the conversation. Now we want to concentrate on our performances and see what happens.”