Millwall players know fate if they drop their standards
By Richard Cawley
Millwall manager Neil Harris reckons his approach to team selection is easy – train well or lose your place.
The Lions go hunting a seventh straight Championship match without defeat when they host Sheffield Wednesday tonight.
And Millwall head into the contest at The Den off the back of a third straight away league victory, substitute Fred Onyedinma’s second-half goal earning a 1-0 win at Birmingham City on Saturday.
Harris said: “It looks like everybody came through unscathed on Saturday. I’ve got fresh legs to use, if I want to. We have got three matches this week.
“There is no magic formula or magic dust when it comes to choosing my teams. I’ll be looking at how my players train and if they don’t train well they don’t play – simple as that.
“I want a team which is fresh and able to compete against Sheffield Wednesday.”
Millwall are 14th in the table after a 10th Championship victory of the season. You can get odds of 250/1 for them to make a return to League One.
But Harris says he never set any points checkpoints for stages of the campaign, their first back at this level after a two-year absence.
“All we did was go for a target and that was in multiples of 10,” he explained. “It only seems a couple of days ago we were talking about reaching 40 and now we are on 42. We quickly amassed that.
“Now we aim for 50 as quickly as possible. We’ve got to keep chasing the teams above us and putting space between those teams at the bottom. The boys have got to keep driving on, because they know they will lose their places otherwise.
“There are some big clubs just above us in the league – we are only three points behind Norwich, Leeds United and Ipswich Town. What a great opportunity to chase those teams.”
Substitute Onyedinma scored his second goal of the campaign – and first in the Championship – in the win at St Andrews. Harris said: “I just felt Fred’s pace, aggression and power might make something happen.”