Mowbray’s Park strife
Wallace BLACKBURN Brereton Diaz
TONY MOWBRAY was thrilled with the way his Blackburn players stood up to the fierce atmosphere at The Den to snatch a point.
Mowbray likened the intimidation factor created by 12,000 Millwall fans to his playing days for Celtic at Parkhead.
His young side dug in to scrape a hard-fought draw from a game in which they only managed two shots.
Jed Wallace made it two goals in two games for the hosts with a wonderfully worked 64th-minute opener.
Dan Ballard’s angled ball out to the left was volleyed first-time across the box by Scott Malone for Wallace to side-foot home at the far post.
But Chile sensation Ben Brereton Diaz levelled with Rovers’ only attempt on target 12 minutes later (above).
Joe Rothwell fizzed in a freekick and Brereton got across Danny McNamara to glance a header into the right corner.
Rovers boss Mowbray said: “We played Swansea last week, who tried to play like Real Madrid. But here, if you couldn’t deal with their corners and set plays, you were going to lose quite heavily.
“I played at Celtic Park with 60,000plus people in, and this is an amazing atmosphere these fans create for this football team. It is a huge advantage for them playing at home, particularly the way they play with the physical element to their game.”
Lions boss Gary Rowett said: “It is frustrating. We created a lot of chances and scored a really good goal, then conceded a poor goal from a wide freekick. We allowed Brereton a free header and you can’t do that.”
MILLWALL: Bialkowski 6; Ballard 7, Cooper 7, M. Wallace 7; McNamara 7, Evans 7 (Mitchell 88), Kieftenbeld 6, Saville 6 (Leonard 81), Malone 8; J. Wallace 8, Afobe 7 (Smith 81).
Unused Subs: Long, Pearce, Mahoney, Bradshaw. BLACKBURN: Kaminski 6; Nyambe 6, Lenihan 7, Ayala 6, Pickering (Butterworth 74, 5); Travis 7, Buckley 5 (Chapman 74, 5), Rothwell 6; Brereton Diaz 8, Dolan 6 (Carter 46, 6), Gallagher 6. Unused Subs: Eastham, Davenport, Garrett, Magloire.
MAN OF MATCH: Scott Malone. Great set-piece delivery and pass for Millwall’s goal.
REFEREE: Andy Davies 6.