Millwall boss confident he has adequate striker cover despite injury setback for summer signing

Millwall head coach Joe Edwards is confident he has a number of striker options to cover the absence of Kevin Nisbet.

The Scottish international is set to be out for a sustained period of time with a hamstring injury.

The Lions boss gave 45-minute runouts to Michael Obafemi and Tom Bradshaw in last Saturday’s 1-0 defeat at Hull City.

Bradshaw is only just back from a hamstring injury while Burnley loanee Obafemi is working his way back to full match sharpness after a lack of game time at his parent club in the first half of the campaign.

“Aidomo Emakhu has played in different positions but some sort of striker role,” Edwards told the South London Press, when asked if he felt there were more permutations up front than just Bradshaw and Obafemi.

“You can interpret the striker role in different ways and play it in different ways to suit a player’s attributes. But Aidomo can certainly play up front in some capacity and Ryan Longman has done it in the past as well, so we’ve got plenty of different options up there.

“Once you start looking at different style of play you can change and go with two up – and have different types of strikers. You can have the split-striker style, someone like Duncan Watmore comes into play – which he has done before.

“Once everyone is fit we’ve got several options up there.

“That includes Tom and Michael. They both played 45 at the weekend which was pre-planned because they both went into the game not at full fitness.

“The whole purpose is that the only way you get players up to a place where they have got more minutes in the tank available is by putting them through it, so that was the thought process behind it – that we needed to get them quickly to that place where they both have more than a half in them.

“Now they have done it and come through a couple of days training since then and hopefully keep progressing through the week, they will be at a point where I can use them for as much as we want.”

Ryan Longman saw a specialist this week about his dislocated shoulder, sustained in the 1-1 home draw against Preston.

“His shoulder injury – a bit like Aidomo’s – isn’t as bad as it could’ve been,” said Edwards. “He is getting re-introduced to outdoor training on his own at the start of next week to try and quickly be accelerated back into some kind of modified training.

“He is aiming to be available for that block of games next week. We’ll have to take it day by day but it’s definitely not a serious one.

“Aidomo is hoping to rejoin at the end of this week or the start of next week.”

Ryan Leonard has been back in full training this week after being sidelined with a hamstring tear.