Millwall ramblings

"We've made contact with the enemy!"
"Great, now to put our plan into action"
"Sir, the plan was our first casualty"

As uncomfortable games go, Millwall was up there. Bogey team. Newly promoted bounce. Playing 11 giants. Sell out pressure.


So lets warm up with the positives.

I take it back. Smith HAS earned his spot. Spectacular saves. We gave McKay man of the match for one goal but Smith was surely worth 3, or -3 in Millwall's case. Still too quiet for a keeper but if Carling did keepers they'd move like smith.

Defence. I was going to just leave it 'Decent attacking wing-back play '
but that would be glossing over the great prospect Darikwa. Some great tackles, always available, some positive forward play, and dont remember him being beat too often.

McKay faded in and out of the game but my god, when he faded in he produced enough magic in 15 seconds to win us the game. Like the magician he is, he then faded away into nothingness but at that point what more do you want.

In contrast to their criticisms, I though Osborn and Clough did well and were let down by a fairly static and heavily marked front line. They lost possession as a byproduct of actually having a go. Which you eventually need to do if your to win games.


Disclaimer: These negative comments I would usually chalk down to early season rust etc, but were so glaringly bad that its needs addressing.

Like I said after Burnley, a strict passing game is a pretty artistic way of gifting away possession in terrible positions. And it was because if you can predict something with 100% certainty, its easy to prepare for, and easy to counter.

Dont get me wrong, its a good style.
It makes sense.
Especially when the opponents midfield is twice the size of yours.
Fair play.

But it cant be 'the one and only path' to getting the ball over the halfway line because if a team the quality of Millwall can have limited success putting two men in the middle of our back four, we'll get shredded against quality teams because we wont be able to pass our way out of our own box.

It also shockingly took two goal kicks and a unbelievable one corner for Millwall to cotton onto 'the one true path of taking set pieces', and they immediatly started aggressively marking from set pieces. In all but two corners, we gave Millwall the ball back or had a pressed passing training session that included Smith. Again, its Millwall. Its what we should do, but it was the predictability.

The last two points aren't even comparable to the grievance that we didn't win headers in our own box. 22 shots towards our goal, at least 15 of them headers. Worral was out-competed and manc just became invisible, which for a captain is inexcusable. AGAIN, its Millwall. Its what we should be doing and when we consistently weren't it was Smith bailing us out.

More importantly than all this, despite Mancience, Worral, Traore, Vaghan , Mckay half the time, Brereton, and Murthy all having a bad game... We WON and we can very rarely say we robbed a team but we did and until we have a fully realised championship tested and approved style, getting points on the board is the most important thing.

Our play will improve as players become more familiar and decisive. I think (hope (kinda of know from his post-match interview)) that Warburton learned a lot today about what we lack, and how to improve the squad and the players in that squad. And hopefully against Brentford, more than 4 and bit players will turn up.

Least we're top of the league ....for now.

Thoughts?
COYRS