‘That irritates the life out of me’ – Alex Neil explains half-time double change and why Millwall looked flat in first half of Blackburn loss.

ALEX Neil explains why he made two changes at halftime in Millwall’s 2-1 loss to Blackburn Rovers, and why his team looked lifeless in the first half.

The Lions were lethargic during the first 45 minutes at The Den, failing to register a shot and only making one touch in Rovers’ box.

Neil reacted immediately, replacing Danny McNamara and Macualay Langstaff with Luke Cundle and Mihailo Ivanovic, converting from 4-4-2 to 3-5-2.

The ramifications were apparent, with Millwall producing several chances before Cundle opened the goal ten minutes after the restart.

Their momentum was halted when Zak Sturge was controversially sent off for pulling down Yuki Ohashi, and the ten-man Lions gave up two late goals, both scored by Mathias Jorgensen. Neil was asked for his thoughts on the modifications.

“We wanted to play aggressively with wingbacks, so I didn’t want a full-back.” [Yuri] Ribeiro plays left wing back for them, so I asked Femi [Azeez] to take him that way.

“I felt like we needed another centre-forward up the pitch, not just Macca, but someone with more presence and size, and Luke Cundle to get his foot on the ball and play more like a central midfielder than a forward who drops down and links it.” I just felt like we needed to alter things up.

“I also believed that the team could use a little more vigour. I believed you could see the influence of previous games building up into this one as well.

“More importantly, we’re at a point now where I don’t think it’s useful or enjoyable – when teams play ahead of you, adding pressure to the game and all that.

That bothers me to no end because if we all play at the same time, all we’ll do is strive to win the next game.

“When you sum everything up, I just felt like it was the correct decision to make. “I thought the way we started the second half was justified.”

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