Gary Rowett expresses his pride despite Millwall’s defeat at Stoke

Gary Rowett expressed his pride despite Millwall slipping to a 2-0 defeat at the hands of his former employers Stoke.

The travelling Lions, who entered the fixture amid an eight-match unbeaten run, found themselves behind due to Jacob Brown’s precise header inside 20 minutes.

Brown, whose goal ended Millwall’s eight-hour run without conceding, missed a sequence of opportunities to consolidate the Potters’ control on the game, hitting a post from point-blank range.

However, his blushes were saved with George Saville flicking a Lewis Baker set-piece into his own net to calm the nerves of the home faithful, who had not witnessed a victory in the league since February 8.

The normally-reliable Jed Wallace had an opportunity to reduce their arrears from the penalty spot, but Jack Bonham saved well to sum up a disappointing afternoon for Rowett’s play-off hopefuls.

The Millwall boss said: “I don’t want to take credit away from Stoke today because they played with a desperation to get a result; I thought they worked incredibly hard. They were quicker than we were, but nevertheless we conceded two very poor goals.

“We got a bit of a lifeline at the end and it would have made for a nervy stadium with Stoke’s recent run and made it a very interesting end to the game, but I don’t think we deserved to get anything out of it.

“We have to accept that maybe it was just one game too far in this run – I’m proud of the players and I think they’ve been brilliant. We come out of it with massive credit and we’re disappointed today, but I don’t want that to overshadow the brilliant run the players have been on.

“They’ll get a nice breather now with the international break, they should be proud of the run and we should come back a little bit