Gary Rowett hopes he never has to rely on a last-minute winner again after watching Millwall do it the hard way against 10-man Blackpool at the Den.
Jake Cooper’s last minute header hauled the hosts to a 2-1 victory after Callum Connolly was sent off with under 15 minutes of the Sky Bet Championship contest played.
Shayne Lavery opened the scoring for Neil Critchley’s visitors just before the hour mark and after Jed Wallace levelled on 63 minutes, captain Cooper was on hand to secure the Lions’ first win of the season.
Relieved Rowett said: “I did say to the players after, ‘can I please not have any more games like that’ because I was going to have a heart attack at one point. We don’t make it easy.
“There’s a little bit of nervousness around the place. It felt like today was almost like a must-win game.
“I think to a certain degree when Blackpool went down to 10 men…I’m not saying it made it harder but it just means they got behind the ball and looked to counter-attack, which they’re actually really good at doing.
“We’ve shown a little bit of character today. I thought the fans could’ve easily got onto us and they didn’t – it was a bit of an edgy atmosphere but I thought they stayed behind the team.
“Normally, I would jump up and down like a lunatic but I actually felt for Neil [Critchley] because I thought his team worked incredibly hard. I felt as though they had worked and deserved something out of the game.”
Last man Connolly was dismissed after just 14 minutes when his pull back on Millwall strike Benik Afobe left referee Gavin Ward with no choice but to award
a red card.
But the Lions struggled to create clear chances despite pinning the Tangerines deep in their own half for much of the opening period.
They were made to pay for their profligacy on 56 minutes when Lavery capitalised on confusion between Bartosz Bialkowski and Murray Wallace to tap home with ease.
Jed Wallace restored parity just seven minutes later, however, rifling home a fine free-kick from 25 yards to swing the momentum in Bermondsey.
Millwall dominated the closing stages and when the hosts won a corner in the 90th minute, Cooper was on hand to meet Jed Wallace’s delivery and propel Rowett’s side to their first win of the season.
Critchley, whose Blackpool side lie on two points after five games, said: “It was cruel, a cruel way to end the game for us.
“It’s very hard to sum up how I’m feeling because on one hand I’m really proud of the performance that we gave, but on the other hand I feel completely devastated for the game to end in that way.
“To come here and play with 10 men for 75 minutes and play as well as we did, I felt we deserved something from the game – to be honest with you. It’s hard to take.
“You can look at it and it looks like two points after five games and we haven’t won. It could look like really doom and gloom, but we’ve actually played well in a lot of our games.
“We’ve had a tough start of games but if we keep performing like we’ve done today, then we will win games.”
