On Saturday afternoon, Pompey defeated Millwall 3-1 to halt their six-game winless streak.
Alex Neil believes Joe Bryan’s red card against Pompey was’very doubtful’ following Millwall’s 3-1 loss at Fratton Park.
And the Lions manager believed his team didn’t play the ‘basics’ well enough to earn anything in what turned out to be a hectic afternoon on the South Coast.
One of the game’s most talked-about moments came midway through the second period, when first-half substitute Bryan took down Callum Lang with a bad challenge on the halfway line, thus ending the Blues’ promising counterattack.
Referee Michael Salisbury finally showed Pompey the red card, which made them play the last 23 minutes with only 10 men after they had complained several times.
Soon after, Mihailo Ivanovic scored to tie the game, but the Blues ended it with a great third goal from Jordan Williams.
Some of Neil’s blame for the firing lies with Bryan, but the Millwall manager thinks the dismissal was “dubious.”
Alex Neil’s thoughts on the red card for Millwall against Pompey
He told the Southwark News, “I don’t think it’s a very good reason to send them off, but Joe shouldn’t let them do that.”
With the way the players and fans reacted, it didn’t come as a surprise to me that the judge showed him the red card. I think Joe tried to get the ball because he’s running wide when he should be on the half-way line.
I believe he was late for too long. He really ought to have come across earlier. From behind, I was yelling at him. I could see it coming together, but he kept putting it off. Make sure you make clean contact with the ball if you’re going to wait.
“I need to look it over again because I haven’t seen it since.” That time, I had a feeling that it wasn’t likely. After seeing the players run around and the fans yell, I thought, “Yeah, he’s going to get caught up in that.” He did it.
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How disappointed Alex Neil was when Pompey lost
In the past few weeks, Millwall has had a lot of injuries. Seven players missed the loss at Fratton.
The Lions have now lost four Championship games in a row without a win, and they are starting to fall behind in the race for the play-offs.
Neil has also said that his team is really feeling the effects of their illness problems.
He also said, “We definitely don’t have enough experience as a group right now.” This makes it hard for a lot of the other boys to come in and do it regularly when guys like Coops, Ryan Lenny, Billy Mitchell, and all of these other boys aren’t there.
It’s good that you can get them some game time by putting them in here and there. That’s not why they lost.
“I believe that as a team we should have kept the ball better.” Why did we not do that? Because then you have to press all the time. After that, you’ll be tired when you get the ball back.
“I also don’t think we dealt with first balls up.” At the end, there’s one. The boy punts it, and they get a corner. We don’t handle the first goal. They are just basic things that we do well most of the time.
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