Millwall vs Blackburn Rovers. Sky Bet Championship.
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Report and highlights from the Sky Bet Championship clash between Millwall and Blackburn Rovers at The Den as Ben Brereton struck an equaliser to earn a point for Tony Mowbray's men after Jed Wallace had given the Lions the lead
Saturday 14 August 2021 20:03, UK
Ben Brereton scored for the second successive league match as Blackburn hit back to claim a 1-1 draw at Millwall in the Sky Bet Championship.
Rovers had barely looked like troubling the Lions' goal for the majority of the contest at The Den, but they found the leveller when they needed to to cancel out Jed Wallace's opener for the hosts.
Wallace, top scorer last season for Gary Rowett's side, also has two goals in two but, just as on the opening day at QPR, Millwall were unable to hold on to their advantage.
Kick-off in South London was delayed by 15 minutes to allow supporters affected by local train delays extra time to make their way to the ground.
George Evans tested Thomas Kaminski to see if he was awake in the opening stages by trying to lob him from inside his own half, but the Blackburn goalkeeper got back to catch safely.
The Rovers defence did a good job in seeing out some dangerous Millwall set-pieces, but their attack offered precious little at the other end during a cagey first half hour.
The first proper chance of the game took 36 minutes to arrive and, unsurprisingly, it came from a Wallace corner which found Jake Cooper at the back post, with the centre-back heading wide.
Scott Malone then picked out George Saville with a cut-back from the left, with Blackburn captain Darragh Lenihan doing well to deflect his goal-bound effort behind.
Despite the Lions upping the pressure the first half ended goalless, and Blackburn had a decent chance four minutes after the restart as substitute Hayden Carter shot wide from an acute angle.
The deadlock was finally broken in the 64th minute as Daniel Ballard switched play to Malone, who fired in a perfect first-time ball across the face of goal from the left that Wallace was able to turn in at the far post.
Rovers were unable to muster much of a response initially, leading to manager Tony Mowbray taking a more attacking approach in bringing Danny Butterworth and Harry Chapman off the bench.
The changes had the desired effect as the visitors were level with 14 minutes remaining, when Brereton got on the end of Joe Rothwell's free-kick to head into the bottom corner.
Millwall stepped up their efforts again in search of a winner, with Ryan Leonard looping a header over after another dangerous delivery from Malone, but for the second week in a row they had to make do with a point.
Millwall's Gary Rowett: "I think if you look at the game, we've had 60 per cent possession and we've had about 18 shots, while they've had about one shot and they score with it, so it's a frustrating game. Tony has got a good side, with good individual players, and I thought they worked hard as a team to make it difficult for us to play through them.
"They sat off and allowed us to try and see whether we can open them up and I thought we looked comfortable, without maybe having that little extra bit of zip about us to open those spaces. When we got the ball to our wing-backs, when we got good balls into box, when we attacked with a little bit more quality, I thought we got into some really good areas. We scored a very good goal and then we should see the game out."
Blackburn's Tony Mowbray: "For the two or three years he [Brereton Diaz] has been with us, I've talked about maturity. He's had to grow into his body and I think he's doing that now. You could see today that he puts his body in well now and bounces off players when that was never the case for the last year or so.
"I think he's come back and has understood the physicality. I think he's always been a talented player. We paid a lot of money for Ben and I think the fruits are coming now. Moving forward, he's hopefully hungry for goals. He enjoys playing with this group of players, he's got a lovely, soft personality, so when I try and drive him to be aggressive sometimes, it's not natural for him. But you saw today that he can do it. He's a big specimen of a man and he needs to know how to use his body."
