One of the big differences when Sow is in the team is that he covers the width of the pitch, protecting our full-backs and really stopping the easy kind of crosses that Millwall were able to manage on Friday. You can draw a triangle between the full-backs, and the centre of the pitch, and that's where Sow wins the ball.
Watson and Cash are considerably worse without him. We still struggle going forwards with him in the team, but I don't think we've lost a home game that Sow has been involved in (not completely sure on that, I just can't recall one myself). We've seen how thin our squad is since the Charlton match, with none of the replacements proving adequate.
In terms of the match, we were awful. Millwall looked good, but they came into the match having won 1 of their previous 8 matches. The Nottingham Forest charity is open for business as usual, and the expectation from here is that we'll charitably capitulate, either in the play-offs, or by not making them at all. Results have gone our way, and as few as 9 points from our remaining matches could yet be enough.