Gary Rowett: We’ll need to graft to keep Millwall defensive stability – it doesn’t just happen

Gary Rowett doesn’t reckon that having a first pre-season with Millwall will make a huge difference to his squad.

But the Lions manager has warned that his players can’t just expect their defensive stability to be there again in the 2020-21 campaign.

Rowett took charge at Millwall in October and the coronavirus pandemic in March saw football suspended until late June.

The Den chief had a short spell of fitness work then with his players to get them ready for the Championship resuming.

And Rowett says the messages sent to his troops will remain the same as they gear up for the forthcoming season.

Millwall get back into competitive action with an EFL Cup tie at Crawley Town before hosting Stoke City on September 12.

They were excellent defensively under Rowett and finished eighth in the Championship last time around.

“I don’t think it [pre-season] makes that much difference really, because we’ve only got four weeks,” said Rowett. “We haven’t got the six-and-a-half weeks you’d normally have with loads of new players – we’ve got a very similar group with a couple of additions.

“Hopefully we get a couple more additions.

“It’s really just going over the principles and what we need to improve on.

“What’s quite nice in our period of time with the players is that we’ve played a different style of football and different formations – now it’s about can we become much better at that?

“It’s always ongoing. I’m not the sort of manager who comes into a club and says: ‘I need a period of time to work with the players’. You have to try and impact straight away.

“So really whether I’ve got a two-day build up to the first game, a four-day or a week’s build-up to the first game, ultimately it’s still going to try and be as consistent as we can with those messages.

“Having worked with the players for quite a period, I don’t think it’s vital or change us massively. We’ve got to maintain the work we’ve done and try to improve certain areas.

“We had a very good defensive record last year but I’ve seen it before where you can’t be blasé about that – it doesn’t mean you’ll have a good defensive record this year. You’ve got to work and get the principles and basics back.

“You almost start from zero. The good thing is the players know what we expect and what we want – hopefully that will speed up the process.”