Gary Rowett hailed a determined Millwall performance after they ended a run of three straight defeats to beat Stoke 1-0.
Rowett labelled his team as “lacklustre” after their 3-1 loss to Norwich last week and has faced criticism from Lions fans following a poor start to the season.
But Kevin Nisbet’s excellent first-half finish was enough for a fifth win in six games against the Potters, who missed a host of second-half chances.
“I’m pleased for the players. I’m still the same manager as I was last week but a little bit happier,” Rowett said.
“I understand the fan criticism. When you pay your money you take your choice but I knew that our fans would get behind us if we put the relevant energy and aggression into the game. That’s what they want to see and that’s what I thought we gave them.
“Certainly, first half I thought we were very good. We played on the front foot, we played forward early, we supported quickly, played off those second balls. We caused Stoke quite a lot of problems, we scored the goal with a good finish to give us that slender lead.
“(Nesbit) just has that calmness around him when he’s in and around the box.
“Stoke made a good tactical change at half-time but we’ve dug in and had to be resilient.”
Millwall were the stronger team in the first half and found the breakthrough when Stoke failed to deal with a looping long throw from the right, bouncing kindly for Nesbit to find the bottom right corner.
Stoke came into the game after a quadruple substitution at half-time. Andre Vidigal went close with a one-on-one and forced a fine save from Matija Sarkic, while Tyrese Campbell hit a post and Wouter Burger had a late drive fizz wide.
Stoke dialled up the pressure as the heavens opened and Campbell had a shot blocked by Shaun Hutchinson before Mehdi Leris shot just over in a scramble.
Potters manager Alex Neil is adamant his team deserved at least a point after camping inside the Millwall half.
Stoke have signed 10 players this summer, including three in the past week, and Neil admits it will take for them to gel – but still wants to add more to his squad before the deadline.
“I’m not in the habit of taking four players off at any one time ever, but I felt as if I needed to impact the game in a positive manner,” he said.
“In the second half, we were excellent and deserved to get something from the match. I thought the chances we had second half, you could argue we should have won it really.
“I was concerned how quickly the new players will bed in, how quickly can they adapt, but on the evidence of the second half, I think the answer was there.
“So when you say ‘stutter’, the first half was disappointing, the result is disappointing but the second half there were hugely encouraging bits.
“We’ve still got to add, we know that, this was always going to be the case for us. The fact is we had won three games out of four this season so far, we’ve won three games out of five now. I think you can see that we’re a good side.”
'I will keep fighting' - Ten Hag adamant he is the right manager for Man Utd
Erik ten Hag insists that he is the right man for the job at Manchester United despite their 4-0 thrashing at the hands of Crystal Palace on Monday.
Michael Olise netted twice against a sorry United team at Selhurst Park, with Jean-Philippe Mateta and Tyrick Mitchell also getting on the scoresheet.
It is the first time that Palace have done the double over the Red Devils in the Premier League, as United extended their winless run on the road to five games.
There has been a lot of speculation over Ten Hag’s future following a disappointing second campaign in charge, with just one year left on his contract.
Asked if he was the right manager for United, he told Sky Sports: "Absolutely. If the right players are there and available, we have a good squad, but are missing the whole backline – we had problems.
"I will keep fighting. I prepared the team in the best way I could do. It was not good enough, by far – I have to take responsibility for that. But I will find energy and prepare them for Sunday’s game.
"At the end of the day, I have to do it with the players who are available. All season, we have huge [injury] problems. Many times we have sorted it out. Today we didn’t."
United have struggled with injury problems all season, with Harry Maguire and club captain Bruno Fernandes joining the lengthy list of players missing against Palace.
Ten Hag highlighted the lack of defensive options at his disposal but did not make excuses for the poor performance, adding: "It’s clear and obvious – this is underperforming. It’s not good enough. We are very disappointed in this. Our fans were behind us all the way – we should have kept fighting like the fans did.
"There are always reasons. Everyone sees our backline, we have huge problems, but at the end of the day we have to deal with it – we should have done better than we did.
"We know [how damaging it could be], but we have nine points to play, so we have to fight for the nine points."
Man Utd thrashing a 'big statement' but Palace are not surprised, says Eze
Eberechi Eze says Crystal Palace's 4-0 thrashing of Manchester United is a "big statement" but insists there should be little surprise that it happened.
Micheal Olise scored twice as Palace ran riot against the sorry Red Devils at Selhurst Park on Monday.
Jean-Philippe Mateta and Tyrick Mitchell also got in on the act as Palace sealed their first league double over United.
Palace have now won four of their last five Premier League games, with Oliver Glasner having turned the tide in the past few weeks.
Speaking to Sky Sports, Eze said: "It says a lot, it's a big statement, but we're not surprised.
"We know what we're capable of, we know what we can do. The quality we've got in the dressing room is high – we don't see it as a surprise. We know what we came here to do today, it worked.
"You can see we’re creating chances, we're not worried about what's going on behind us. We're attacking, pressing, we're aggressive – we're going to continue to create chances for sure."
Also speaking to Sky Sports, Glasner said: "Congratulations to the team. I think in the first half, we didn't play as well as we could, but we were very efficient and scored very nice goals.
"At half-time, we made some adaptations, and the second half was much better. We created a lot of chances, scored some nice goals, and it's a great win.
"We know we have quality when we get our players in situations to score a goal.
"Good players, a good team spirit, but we must always stay humble. It's not so long ago we were struggling [in a relegation battle]. We are doing well, but we have a lot to improve."
This was Palace's biggest Premier League win since beating Leeds United 5-1 in April 2023, while it also marked their biggest on home soil in the competition since a 5-0 victory over Leicester City in April 2018.
Udinese 1-1 Napoli: Struggling Bianconeri grab last-gasp home draw
Napoli were held to a 1-1 draw at relegation-battling Udinese in Serie A on Monday after a stoppage-time goal by forward Isaac Success cancelled out a Victor Osimhen header.
Osimhen nodded home to give Napoli the lead in the 51st minute after Matteo Politano sent a lofted cross from the right into the middle of the box, and the Nigerian striker headed the ball in off the left post.
The Nigerian thought he doubled their advantage in the 80th minute, but his effort was ruled out for offside, before Success bundled in the leveller in stoppage time, netting from a Thomas Kristensen header.
Napoli moved up to eighth on 51 points from 35 games and are nine points behind both fifth-placed Atalanta and Roma, in sixth.
Data Debrief:
Osimhen is the third Napoli player to score in six matches in a row against a single team in Serie A in the three-points-for-a-win era, after Gonzalo Higuain against Lazio between 2013 and 2016 and Dries Mertens against Bologna between 2016 and 2019.
Despite fighting back to earn a point, Udinese have now failed to win three games under a new manager for the first time since August-September 2010 under Francesco Guidolin.
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