MANY HAPPY RETURNS TO BOOST COOK
WIGAN MILLWALL 1 0
LEON BALOGUN reckons Wigan have overcome a crucial mental hurdle after holding out against Millwall.
The Latics have shed 31 points from winning positions this season – more than any other club in English football.
But with on-loan Brighton defender Balogun outstanding on his home debut, they defied the Lions to give boss Paul Cook – who watched from the TV gantry due to a touchline ban – the perfect 53rd birthday present. Balogun said: “I went in to see the manager and said ‘happy birthday, I guess we have given you the best present – three points and a clean sheet!’ It was a massive win.
“You could see when we took the lead we had more confidence than against Cardiff last week.
“It is six games now and only one loss, so that is a positive trend and hopefully we can keep it going.”
Shaun Hutchinson (above) turned Anthony Pilkington’s cross into his own net for the only goal of the game.
Millwall defender Murray Wallace said: “We got a big result at Preston the week before to put us back in touching distance of the top six and then we come here and maybe the attitude was wrong. Maybe we thought it was going to be easy. We just haven’t performed.
“There were too many of us who were not fully at it.
“Sometimes you can get away with one or two but as a team we were not at it.” WIGAN: Marshall 6, Byrne 7, Kipre 8, Balogun 8, Naismith 7, Morsy 7, Williams 7, Lowe 6 (Evans 85), Pilkington 9 (Gelhardt 75, 6), Jacobs 7, Moore 7
MILLWALL: Bialkowski 7, M Wallace 6, Hutchinson 6, Cooper 6, Romeo 6, Pearce 6 (Bennett 63, 5), J Wallace 7, Molumby 6, Woods 7, Bradshaw 6 (Mahoney 78, 5), Bodvarsson 6 (Smith 63, 5) REF: Jeremy Simpson ATT: 9,639
ADAM ARMSTRONG may have kept Blackburn in the play-off hunt – but there are serious question marks over his future.
The 23-year-old scored twice at Brentford to take his season’s tally to 12 goals, with Rovers now five points from the top six.
But Armstrong was this week linked with a £10million return to hometown club Newcastle – who he left for £3m in 2018 – and Crystal Palace.
When asked about the rumours and whether he was happy at Rovers, the forward said: “I’m not commenting on anything like that.”
Armstrong is looking the Premier League part, though, and could well be playing there whatever happens in the summer.
Despite Blackburn
Ref: throwing away a 2-0 lead at Griffin Park and having a major injury list including Lewis Holtby and Bradley Dack, they are dark horses to gatecrash the top six.
Armstrong added: “There’s no reason at all why we can’t make the play-offs. We need to keep pushing.
“We know how tight the league is, we just need to keep going, keep creating chances and hopefully we will be there come the end of the season.
“We’re really pleased. We have a great squad. We knew the lads who weren’t playing earlier in the season had to step up. They’ve done that and we’ve been doing really well. It can only be a plus for when some of the lads come back from injury.”
Armstrong gave Blackburn the lead with a classy 11th-minute finish before converting a 54th-minute penalty after David Raya fouled John Buckley.
But the Bees came right back from the dead thanks to a wonder strike from Ollie Watkins (above) eight minutes later and Said Benrahma’s
Att: 71st-minute penalty after Amari’i Bell had fouled Mads Roerslev. Brentford have drawn three on the spin and now find themselves six points behind second-placed Leeds in the race for automatic promotion.
However, impressive Danish sub Roerslev said: “We have to be pleased with one point. It is better than nothing. In the second half we dominated. “Our boss Thomas Frank told me to play my own game and bring some energy.
“When we were 2-0 down it is all about going forward so as a wing-back you feel free.
“It was so good to feel a sell-out crowd. We could feel it on the pitch. We felt like whenever we got the ball everyone was pumped up.
“We want to go even further forward with the atmosphere.” BRENTFORD: Raya 6, Dalsgaard 7, Jeanvier 6 (Roerslev 54, 7), Pinnock 6, Henry 7 (Dervisoglu 84), Norgaard 6, Dasilva 7, Marcondes 6 (Baptiste 60, 6), Mbeumo 7, Watkins 7, Benrahma 8 BLACKBURN: Walton 7, Nyambe 7, Lenihan 6, Adarabioyo 6, Bell 5, Buckley 7 (Gallagher 65, 6), Travis 6, Johnson 6, Downing 6, Armstrong 8, Samuel 5 (Bennett 73, 6)