Valerien Ismael described Blackburn’s 4-1 hammering of Millwall as the best his side has played since his arrival as head coach.
Rovers maintained their slim play-off hopes by putting their in-form visitors to the sword.
Dominic Hyam’s 42nd-minute header put Rovers ahead – the first of three goals in five minutes – as Mihailo Ivanovic equalised before Sondre Tronstad registered the first of two spectacular strikes to give Blackburn a half-time lead.
They ruthlessly pulled away thanks to Callum Brittain’s powerful near-post finish, before Tronstad’s thunderbolt on the hour rounded off the scoring.
Rovers need a perfect end to the campaign to have a chance of extending their season but Ismael was pleased with the spirit his players displayed.
He said: “It was a great afternoon especially the way we wanted to play. We kept going in the second half against Sheffield Wednesday… the fighting spirit against Luton last week… and we combined both today.
“From minute one, we were on the front foot, this is what we expected and we see clearly the way the players want to win, reinforce the message, the game plan, the way we want to play. When you get the result, the players start to believe and get more confidence and today is the best performance I’ve seen from the players since I’ve been here.
“You see what happens when you are missing key players, it makes a huge difference. Callum Brittain, his first game back, he lifted the quality in the team. This team needs the best players on the pitch to perform and you see the statistics, much more shots on target, much more penetration.”
Millwall’s own play-off hopes were damaged with defeat. Alex Neil felt his side created chances but pointed to the makeshift backline – including debutant goalkeeper George Evans – as ‘mitigating circumstances’.
He said: “There’s a bit of mitigating circumstances. We have a 19-year-old making his debut in goal, we lose Joe (Bryan) yesterday. We then had to put a right back from right back to left back. Tristan (Crama) is playing his fourth game at centre-back.
“So we have a backline really that’s been cobbled together but I don’t want to, and I haven’t – certainly from the player’s perspective – given us any excuse as to why we should lose the game but I think we’re all fully aware when you change potentially four positions out of your back five, particularly at this stage of the season with the magnitude of the game we needed to win, it’s certainly not helpful.
“It’s not been ideal but having said all that, I still feel as if we had enough opportunities to impact the game today but we didn’t take our opportunities.”
