Wigan Athletic wanted it more than we did, admits Millwall manager

A Shaun Hutchinson own goal - off an Anthony Pilkington cross-shot - just before the hour mark was the difference between the two sides at contrasting ends of the Championship table.

And while Paul Cook's men closed the gap to safety to just two points, Rowett's side saw their play-off hopes take a huge dent.

"It looked like Wigan were more desperate to win than we were," the Lions manager mused.

"And that's the biggest frustration for me.

"Sometimes you have to take a game by the scruff of the neck at places like Wigan.

"But we looked like we were waiting for things to happen.

"You saw what happened when we started chasing the game in the last half an hour.

"We looked like we really wanted to get back into the game, we started taking people on.

"My question to the players would be why didn't we do that for the first 60 minutes."

Rowett was particularly unhappy given his side's recent run of good results against some of the best sides in the division.

"It's a feeling of disappointment really, on the back of two good performances against Fulham and Preston," he added.

"We seem to be able to lift our game for the teams at the upper end of the division.

"But we don't seem to have that same mentality for these kind of games.

"And that's very disappointing for me as manager.

"In the first half, I'm just waiting for our performance to get started.

"The major disappointment for me is we just didn't really ever get going."