Byron Webster falls shorts of personal target but happy to prove people wrong
Byron Webster expressed his delight at making his long-awaited league return for Millwall after almost a year out with a serious knee problem.
The 31-year-old centre-back ruptured a cruciate ligament in September and was forced to miss almost the whole of last season after undergoing surgery.
Webster had not featured in the Championship since a 3-1 defeat to Barnsley on September 30 2017 at The Den – but he started in Saturday’s 2-0 defeat at West Bromwich Albion.
“It was good to be out there,” Webster said. “I had my targets of what I wanted to do and had in my head the middle of September. So, I fell just short of it, but it was good to be back out there.
“People have written me off – that I would never get back from the injury. Football is about proving people wrong – that’s the main thing. That’s what I strive to do now.
“I just keep doing what I am doing. I have grafted hard and I have had good people around me. My family, my friends, the lads – the lads have been top draw. A special praise to Paul [Tanner] the physio, obviously all the medical department, Bloomy [Laurence Bloom] and all of his sports science department.
“I am not going to get carried away. I have played one proper game in the league. It’s a big achievement for myself obviously coming back from the injury.
“There’s full fitness and match fitness. I have trained for a long, long time and I played a few games, but it’s obviously hard when my last game was two or three weeks ago. That’s not just me, that’s whoever goes out the team and comes in. We work hard and train and if you’re not playing, you’re still doing extra training.”
Webster started twice in the EFL Cup but found himself in the starting line-up at The Hawthorns on Saturday in place of Murray Wallace, who had started the last four.
Two quick-fire goals from Dwight Gayle and Kieran Gibbs earned the Baggies the points and saw Millwall slip to their fifth defeat in six Championship outings and a fourth in succession on the road.
Webster paid tribute to the 2,300 travelling supporters.
He said: “We knew what we had to do. Go back to basics, be hard to beat, put a Millwall performance in and get the fans behind us. They were brilliant. They travelled in their numbers.
“It gave us that extra buzz. You look around at each other when we are under the cosh and there are smiles on the faces – we enjoy the battle even though the result didn’t go for us. I don’t think we went under, we kept going until the end and it’ll stand us in good stead.
“We have had good performances and not got the results, so if we could have been rubbish and nicked a win then everyone would have been happy.
“Is it down [in the dressing room]? It’s always down after a loss. We have got another game Tuesday night. We will be back in, working hard and it will turn sooner or later. I don’t think anyone can argue we tried our nuts off today.”
Both of West Brom’s goal came from crosses and the big defenders was asked whether he could put a finger on why Millwall have conceded so many from balls into the box in recent weeks.
Webster said: “Football goes like that doesn’t it? A striker doesn’t score for ages and then scores 10 in a row. It’s the same for us. I don’t know why it is, but crosses at the minute seem to be a problem.
“It could be next week or whenever it is that we never concede from a cross again. We work on everything throughout training. Not just because we are conceding from corners, we will work on it whatever.”
IMAGE BY BRIAN TONKS