Gary Rowett gave a blunt assessment of his side’s thrilling defeat away to QPR, which saw Millwall’s play-off hopes ended.

Five goals in twenty-five second half minutes lit up W12, but the loss leaves Millwall five points off sixth, unable to keep up with Cardiff City.

After the game, Rowett was in no mood for excuses.

He said, ‘I’m disappointed. I could easily stand here now and say we’ve come so far, we’ve done so well, we’re so proud of what we’ve achieved but that’s not me. So, I’m disappointed.’

The Millwall gaffer has transformed Millwall from mid-table to play-off contenders, but he felt his players failed to stand up when it mattered.

Rowett continued, ‘When the pressure came on, we’ve not managed to step up and handle it very well. We did the same against Middlesbrough a couple of weeks ago when we didn’t perform and the same today.’

‘We didn’t start well. Defensively, for the first time, we looked very vulnerable. We didn’t do our jobs, one vs one in the right areas around the box.’

‘Even then, getting through to 43 minutes, we always had a change of shape at half time to change things around like we’ve done a lot of times. Then we concede a set-piece.’

‘Against QPR, with no disrespect, I don’t think they’re a side we should be conceding set-pieces against.’

‘To come in 1-0 was disappointing. Of course, we changed it, came back to 1-1 very quickly and then against, disappointed with the second goal.’

‘It’s a poor goal to concede, I’m sure Bart will be disappointed with it and it just knocked the stuffing out of us a little.’

Millwall needed three points, but Rowett’s attacking gamble left the away side open at the back and they were punished by the likes of Ilias Chair and Ebere Eze.

‘As the game went on, it was quite consistent, we didn’t defend very well against QPR’s lively and talented individual forwards, but I felt we caused them a lot of problems when we got the ball in the box.’

‘Really, you come away from home and score three goals and an offside goal towards the end that wasn’t offside, but I won’t go too much into that in detail because a draw didn’t matter to us.’

‘Whilst we could have scored five or six goals today, QPR probably could have scored eight or nine. That’s not the sort of game you need at this stage in the season.’

‘When you change shape and have to chase a game, we knew Cardiff’s result at half time, and we know a draw is no good for us. We had to take risks and unfortunately today the risks didn’t pay off.’