Millwall 1 - West Bromwich Albion 1

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Ratings submitted so far: 10

Brendan Clegg:

Hugely frustrating team today.

The spine looked a lot better with Semi, Diakite and Lankshear through it but the inclusion of Wallace was just perplexing. From kickoff it was also clear that Armstrong was playing wide left.

We had the striker everyone else in the league wants out wide left, the league’s best winger on the bench and in Wallace and, sorry to say it, Diagana a pair of failures who have had too many chances.

AA might have played that role elsewhere but given we have MJ, Grant and Grady who can play there and nobody really who can play up front it did seem… moronic.

I thought the fears anyone might have were there to see after ten minutes and honestly I’d have changed it there and then and got Fellows on for Wallace.

We were all over the place, hopeless and they inevitably scored after we couldn’t keep the ball, get it away, block crosses or defend our own 6 yard box. For me, a top keeper at this level comes and punches that clear too.

I don’t think we were much better after that apart from a couple of individuals but we got level through a half decent move and a looks break.

We then had one good corner and hit the bar via a good bit of play by Grady.

That was it. We were poor.

Second half I wanted Fellows ASAP but when it eventually came we’d already hooked Lankshear and put AA up on his own against the monstrous Cooper.

Was it too much to ask to give it 15-20 mins at 4-4-2 with Lankshear and AA up top and two wingers? Yes it was.

The other subs weakened us further, MJ and Price didn’t get on the pitch somehow. We ended the game with Molumby in the 10 furthest forward, Swift the deepest midfielder and very lucky to get a point.

Wildsmith made decent saves; Swift did have a swing after Fellows cut back superbly in the one moment his 20 minutes allowed.

Not only does Mowbray not know his best team… he is seemingly actively avoiding it. You can’t keep making this many changes. We look like we’re going to blow it. If we weren’t trying to make the playoffs, why waste the money on AA?

A crap Millwall team who got pumped by Plymouth last week and we showed them way too much respect. Our caretaker coaching team got better, more balanced and cohesive performances. I reckon they’d have hit a better haul of points with these squad changes too.

After our shot in the first minute, did their keeper make another save in the rest of the game?

• Wildsmith - 7 Solid saves
• Furlong - 5 too slow and got robbed too often
• Ajayi - 7 Rusty but carried the ball forward and passed it bravely. A positive.
• Heggem - 6 all things considered, the games played and partners he’s had, did okay
• Styles - 5 Getting pressed and targeted.
• Wallace - 4 Tried and ran but caught napping too often and is just miles off it.
• Molumby - 5 got about but that was another needless, brain dead booking at the end. His inner child can’t be trusted and he needs to be told.
• Diakite - 7 Took a while to get going and arguably at fault for the goal but started winning the 40/60s and used the ball well. Really think we’re missing a trick here. Hope he stays in the team.
• Armstrong - 5 totally ineffective
• Diagana - 5 Don’t fall for the odd bit of magic. Lazy, lost it weakly too often, holds onto it for an age sometimes. It’s over. The desire isn’t there.
• Lankshear - 6 Won’t have a harder game for a full debut against big strong and tough defenders. It wasn’t obvious how relatively well he was going until he went off and we fell to pieces.

• Grant - 4 Absolutely hopeless. All the fight, leadership, assertiveness have gone. I’d have seen the point in starting him to protect Styles.
• Fellows - 6 No service but he had one chance to produce a moment and he delivered. Has to start every game. Madness not to.
• Holgate - 6 Did okay, defended.
• Dike - 5 a positive to see him but a bit ridiculous too if we’re not a few goals up. He’s not ready. Keep him in the 21s for a few more games.
• Swift - 4 I’m not joking… his first 3 touches were stupid heel flicks. Should’ve been bombed out. Indefensible that he got minutes over Price or MJ.

Kev Buckley:

Millwall 1 Albion 1: Not very pretty in pink

Five personnel changes, and one positional one, for the visit to The Den saw a return from injury for Ajayi, coming in for Holgate, and a first start for Lankshear, whose inclusion saw Armstrong asked to play wide left as Johnston dropped to the bench. Elsewhere, Diangana was not asked to play wide left, but replaced Price in centre-mid, with Diakite and Wallace the like-for-like swaps for Mowatt and Fellows.

Armstrong quickly got in the swing of what being in the wide left role at the Albion asks of players, when, as early as the first minute, he cut inside and across and got off a shot that the keeper dealt with. Sadly though, any hopes of him ever going outside his full-back and delivering anything for his number nine, were just as quickly dispelled as Albion's passing failed to set either of the wide men away all that often.

Indeed, in the fifth minute, an underhit ball in the direction of Wallace on the right was easily cut out and returned with interest as MillWall looked to make the best use of their left-winger, whose cross was first dummied centrally, allowing an unmarked player at the top of our box to shoot wide.

A couple of minutes after that though, Diangana ran through the middle and did free Wallace on the right but his cross evaded both of the Albion players who had got into the box.

Millwall got on the front foot and if Styles looked a bit troubled under a high dropping ball in the box, as twenty minutes passed, even seeing it bounce up and onto his arm - penalty shouts waved away - he looked even less composed when hacking that rebound clear, only to present it to a Millwall player with more than enough time and space to deliver a cross that was powered in as their giant centre-back got up above Diakite on the edge of our six-yard-box.

Also notable as that twenty minute mark passed was that I can't recall Lankshear actually touching the ball, unless he was the one who pushed the kick-off backwards, that is?

As twenty-five passed, Diangana got on the ball centrally and set Furlong away in their right-back area, and the cross he delivered into the home side's six-yard-box was turned into his own net by the same player who had OG'd and scored for his side in the last game. Cue the commentary team trying to ascertain if any player had ever scored "at both ends" in consecutive games, at least at a level where stats were recorded: we never got a definitive answer though, and of course the player didn't go on to score for his own side anyway.

A couple of minutes after that and Diangana was allowed, from a short corner, to advance into the Millwall box, but somehow, his goal-bound effort was "headed", not that the defender would have known too much about it, back up and onto the underside of the bar, from where it bounced back down and in front of the line, before being hacked away.

Ajayi powered a back-post header too close to the keeper, from a corner, around the half-hour, but that was that for the first half.

Millwall continuted to look the more likely side to break the deadlock as the second half developed, with Wildsmith twice having to pull off reaction saves as 53 passed: first, when tipping one away from under his right-post crossbar, and then reacting well as a low header came through bodies, heading towards his left-post side-netting.

Shortly after that, Grant, who has pretty much been allowed to define the non-wide-man wide-left role at the Albion - all cutting inside and few crosses - came on for Lankshear, a switch which saw Armstrong move up top to wait for deliveries that rarely, if ever, come.

Not sure whether Wallace going down injured, on 67, would have accelerated any like-for-like swap with Fellows, but that swap was made then, along with Holgate replacing Styles, which saw Heggem move out to left-back.

Ten minutes after that, Swift replaced Diangana though the centre, and Dike, on his return from injury, was given a fifteen minute run, at the expense of Armstrong, and although the American spent most of those fifteen minutes patrolling (OK: maybe make that filling) the area between our box and the centre-circle, rather than proving himself in the opposition's box, something, you may recall Mowbray has asked of Cole if he was ever given the chance, Dike did battle well to knock a defender off the ball and tee up Molumby, with about three to go, but the latter's shot was too weak to really trouble the keeper.

Straight after that, Millwall went straight back on the attack, but, luckily for us, when the ball reached an ummarked player at our back, left, post, it had already come through enough bodies that his reactions were only good enough to be able to "knee it" well wide.

Even had we lost a point to that chance, results elsewhere would still have seen us, once again, remain inside the top six, although, in reality, we're in second place within a plethora of clubs all vying for the bottom two non- automatic spots, with the top four all but disappearing over the horizon.

I could make an argument that starting Fellows and Johnston trying to get in behind and feed Armstrong, or the slightly taller Lanksheaer, would have just played into the hands of Millwall's giants at the back, and I'm sure there'd be lots of people countering that should I try to, although, even with, say, a fit Dike being the intended target, surely few would argue that it's through the middle where still look lacking, with the combination of Diakite and Molumby never really seeing us boss this one in front of our back four (as welcome as it was to see Ajayi back in there) let alone in breaking fowards in support, whilst ahead of them, Swift's been turned into a pale shadow of his former self - what a waste - and Diangana, bizarrely, usually starting ahead of Swift, was never a No. 10 to start with.

All in all then: not very pretty in pink.