Joe Edwards admits Millwall’s torrid run is sternest challenge of his coaching career

Millwall boss Joe Edwards has conceded that he is facing the toughest period of his coaching career.

The Lions have collected just one point from a possible 21.

Edwards and his squad are feeling the heat as a torrid sequence of results has pulled them right into the Championship relegation battle.

The 37-year-old was appointed as Gary Rowett’s successor in November.

Edwards had previously been on the senior coaching ranks at Chelsea and Everton. He left his role as England U20 head coach to take the top job at Millwall.

“I think that it fair to say it is,” said Edwards, when asked by the South London Press if he was experiencing his sternest test. “I’ve obviously had challenging periods in my career but this is my first time as head coach.

“It doesn’t make it solely down to you but you inherit a bigger share of the responsibility than when you are in any other roles.

“It’s been a really disappointing period in terms of results. It is something I haven’t lived before, in terms of that few points in that amount of games.

“We spoke yesterday with the players. Although we have had a disappointing seven weeks since the last win against Bristol City, it is seven league games without a win but I think we’ve only played really poorly three times – which is still three times more than we’d have liked.

“We were poor away at QPR, we were poor against Ipswich at home and poor against Sheffield Wednesday at home. Okay, of course, to a point we know that you’re only as good as your last performance and that’s two poor home performances we have put in this week – which we know is a problem and creates bad feeling.

“But in amongst that run you can talk about Coventry away, Hull away and Preston at home – in my opinion there are plenty of performances in there that on another day and in another time, there has been more than enough to put points on the board in Championship games.

“We’ve just made costly errors that have ended up in our net and not done enough to score goals. That’s how I see it.”