![]() Sunday, 3rd Mar 2013 12:48 by Tim Whelan Millwall boss Kenny Jackett was quick to blame referee Mike Jones after his side were beaten at Elland Road yesterday in the battle of the play-off outsiders. Meanwhile Neil Warnock was delighted with the result, but he should know that we need more punch up front during the remaining games. Jackett had no complaints about either of our penalties but said “I felt we had a clear-cut penalty when Danny Shittu headed the ball down, Sam Byram had his hand by the side of his body and clearly handled it as the ball was going through to my centre-forward, so I thought the referee got that call wrong”. Well, he would say that wouldn’t he. I thought that the ball had struck Byram’s hand and it wasn’t intentional, so it would have been very harsh had the penalty been given. In any case, Jackett has obviously forgotten that his side got plenty of help from the officials when they beat us at the New Den earlier in the season, with Leeds reduced to ten men after the highly dubious dismissal of Luke Varney. The Millwall boss also claimed that “we were unfortunate to come away with nothing”, but in reality this was a game that Leeds dominated and should have sewn up well before the goal finally came from Stephen Warnock’s 72nd minute penalty. A relieved Neil Warnock was full of praise for his namesake’s all round contribution when he spoke to Yorkshire Radio after the game. "He is fearless, he talks and he calms us down at the back.If I had this back four at the start of the season we would be a lot higher." Certainly our defence has a far better balance when we have a specialist left-back playing in that position, and Lee Peltier has looked far more comfortable in central defence. We have now kept a clean sheet in each of our last three games, but the concern must now be at the other end of the field. After the stalemate at Blackburn and our failure to score from open play against Millwall, the form of our main strikers needs to improve if we’re to stand any chance in the run-in. Morison hardly had a shot yesterday, while McCormack looks out of sorts at the moment. The Scotsman was blamed by the manager for costing us a point at Boro, and was then guilty of an appalling miss at Blackburm before wasting another good chance yesterday as well as missing a penalty. Warnock said "It was just important to win the game so I am delighted. We said before the game that we had to take a minimum of five points from the next three games, so it was very important to get three points out of the Millwall game with a run of tough games coming up." Whilst the win was certainly very welcome, we didn’t actually make any ground in the race for the play-offs, as the three teams above us also managed to win. So the pressure is on for us to pick up points in the two difficult away games to come in the next week, as if we lose both we might finally have to concede that our chances of a top six place have gone for another season.
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