Alex Neil says Millwall have drawn a line under the controversy surrounding the dismissal of keeper Liam Roberts at Crystal Palace last week following his side’s 2-1 victory at Watford.
Roberts learned on Friday he would serve an extended six-game ban after being sent off for a challenge on Jean-Philippe Mateta that left the Palace forward needing 25 stitches in a wound to his ear.
But after seeing his side fight back to claim three points at Vicarage Road thanks to second-half goals from Casper De Norre and Josh Coburn, Millwall manager Neil insisted the fall-out from Roberts’ red card had not been a distraction during the week and that the club is ready to move on.
He said: “I think now we can draw a line under the Liam stuff.
“You know, we’ve supported Liam. Liam’s made a bad decision. He’s mistimed the challenge. I think it’s then been trial by media at that point afterwards, which we are not in control of.
“But internally, it’s not really been turbulent for us. You know, we’ve spoke to Liam. Liam’s fine. He understands. He spoke to me, all that sort of it’s done. Draw a line under it.
“Liam will serve a suspension. That’s the way it is, and then we just move on to the next game.”
Millwall recovered after falling behind to Mattie Pollock’s 30th-minute header with De Norre equalising in the 59th minute and Coburn heading the winner nine minutes from time.
The win moves Neil’s side to within a point of Watford in mid-table and strengthens their hopes of forcing their way into the play-offs.
The manager added: “We want to fight to be in contention. We’re certainly not naive.
“I think we’ve got five of the top six away from home still to play. So if we do get there, we’ll certainly deserve to be there. But we’re certainly not giving up on anything, and we’ll keep fighting.”
Watford came into the game with hopes of closing the gap to the play-off places and boss Tom Cleverley admitted his side had been handed a painful lesson.
The Watford manager said: “I think the way we approached it is is a big learning curve for us.
“I’ve got a lot of young players in there, and we put massive emphasis on the first 10 minutes of the game.
“Well, we have to put the same amount of emphasis on the first 10 minutes of the second half, because we couldn’t get out of the rut that we started in, and that’s a big learning curve for us.
“I think we made a mistake, couple of mistakes early in the half and we lost a bit of confidence with that.
“We’re a team with not much depth on the bench to come off, so we have to stick to our principles. And today it was just too many had an off day in that second half, and they they smelt that and capitalised on it.
“It’s time to dig deep because this one stings a lot because we have ambitions and we have to dig deep to come back mentally on Wednesday (against Swansea).
