Millwall boss feeling frustrated as his side can’t build on strong start in 2-1 loss at Coventry City

Joe Edwards spoke of his frustration as Millwall were once again on the wrong end of a comeback – this time to Coventry City at the CBS Arena on Sunday afternoon.

The Lions led 1-0 at the break thanks to Romain Esse’s second goal of the season but Haji Wright’s second-half brace condemned them to a fourth defeat in their last five league games and leaves them winless since the 1-0 win at Bristol City on New Year’s Day.

“It’s a really frustrating position we’re in at the moment,” said Lions head coach Edwards.

“You constantly have games like this where there’s a lot to be pleased with. We start well, we execute a lot of what we talk about and we get the goal that our start deserves. Then we have an opportunity to get the second which makes it a completely different game. Not only for them but it relieves the constant pressure of when you’re facing players like the attackers that they’ve got.

“We won our last game on New Year’s Day. We haven’t won since then but we’ve had a lot where we’re not getting beaten well by anyone in terms of scoreline or being completely dominated from start to finish. We’re having several games where… ‘oh yeah, lots to be pleased about, great start, etcetera etcetera,’ but not many points to show for it.

“The bottom line is we know we’re a football team in a competitive league and we want to put points on the board and there’s too many getting away from us at the moment and it’s frustrating.”

It’s now 24 points dropped from winning positions this season, a staggering total and something that Edwards said has been talked about and worked on in training.

“I’m not sure if it’s in the back of their minds as soon as we go 1-0 up because if you look at the goal today, we got the goal and then we went again,” he said.

“I can only say there’s a mentality issue around it because it’s the mistakes. The two standout things about the goals are they’re littered with mistakes. It’s a sloppy tackle that gives the penalty. That’s always going to be the challenge against Coventry – they’re so good one v one and two v one around the box – that you have to be on it defensively.

“We got caught on the wrong side and we made a foul, so that’s an error. But then the fact that we follow it up so soon after with some positional issues and then even the finish. The finish isn’t a great finish and it ends up in the back of our net.

“All we can do is keep addressing it. We had it in our game against Preston. After they scored between there and half-time, we couldn’t get anywhere near the game. So we started looking at all the data and breaking it down and working out what happened and what changed. We work on it time and time again but at the moment we just can’t put it into practice in the games.”