Millwall boss Joe Edwards admitted relief was the overwhelming emotion after his side ended a three-month winless run at home in the Championship with a 2-0 victory over QPR at The Den.
Goals from Tom Bradshaw and Murray Wallace proved enough for all three points against their capital rivals on Boxing Day, halting the Lions’ sequence of seven matches without a win.
The result lifted Millwall six points clear of the drop zone and left Edwards pleased with the way his side ground out a victory against a relegation rival.
“I’ve got a lot of belief in this team but when you’re on a difficult run then you do really have to dig in and keep going,” he said.
“That was what the performance showed today because these games – when they are London derbies and two teams in a difficult position – it creates a bit of tension around them.
“You aren’t always going to get free-flowing, attractive games but we showed enough quality in spells to see signs of where we want to head.
“It’s definitely a relief – relief at the end of the run and relief when you know there is going to be that much added time going on (10 minutes), particularly after the way the last home game went (conceding stoppage-time penalty in draw against Huddersfield on December 16).
“Ultimately it was about our spirit today and we were difficult to play against. QPR played some nice football without ever really hurting us too much. I don’t think Matty Sarkic has made a save really.
“Those basics we want to be about, the fundamentals before we talk about playing any football, they need to be there.
“It was there today and gets us a clean sheet. Two consecutive clean sheets means four points. We need to remember that and keep building on it.”
The result condemned Marti Cifuentes’ QPR to a third loss on the bounce and the Spaniard acknowledged not much went right for his side.
“It’s a poor performance – perhaps the worst since I’ve been here,” he said.
“We didn’t start the game well. Millwall pressed really, really high – very aggressive – and we didn’t find a way to beat that pressure.
“We lacked the capacity to understand the space today was behind their back line. We had to activate the runs from behind.
“We tried to adjust this in the first half. From minute 30 we started to understand this a little bit better but then in a minute we should
never concede a goal, we concede a goal.
“We concede because we try to do it but then the team doesn’t travel in a compact way, so the space for the second ball is too big.
“We had the quality to break lines and travel together at the start of the second half and got some situations inside the box through Lyndon (Dykes) and Illy (Chair).
“Perhaps through the second half we start to drop a little bit and the last 15 minutes before injury time were not great. When we concede a second goal from a set-piece then obviously the game is over.
“When you win games then everything is much easier. When you do not get those wins, you need much more personality to go through.”