Millwall boss Gary Rowett gives his verdict on 2023-24 Championship fixture schedule

Gary Rowett has given his verdict on Millwall’s 2023-24 Championship fixture schedule and explained why he does not get too hung up on the way the matches break down.

The Lions kick things off with an away game at Middlesbrough on August 5.

“It’s a tough opening fixture but if you look at last season they we played all the top teams in the first five or six away games,” Rowett told the South London Press. “It’s certainly not that (this time around).

“If you look at their form since Michael (Carrick) came in, I know they tailed off a tiny bit at the end and couldn’t quite there, but they were really impressive. It’s one to look forward to and embrace.

“I look for the opening five or six as a bit of a cluster and your final five or six. You look for Christmas. I’ll be really honest, as a manager you don’t really take much stock in the fixtures because, for example, we had a period just before the last six to seven where everyone said: ‘oh, if you can get through these then the last six or seven look quite good’. And we had really good results in that period, like beating Sheffield United, and then we didn’t quite do so well in the last five or six.

“I genuinely think it doesn’t matter – it’s about your consistency over the season.

“I look at Boxing Day and New Year’s Day, where are we? Because I’ve got to travel back home. You end up looking more selfishly at key dates for you, rather than thinking ‘oh, that’s easy and oh, that’s not so good’ – because it just doesn’t work like that. And you don’t know who is strong and who is not strong – who is going to the top teams and who isn’t going to be the top teams.

“It makes it quite difficult to predict your season, based on how the fixtures have fallen.”

There is often the suggestion that it is better to face the relegated Championship teams early on as they adjust to a new division as well as the potential exodus of prize talent towards the end of the transfer window. The same train of thought is that clubs coming up tend to have retained confidence from their form in the opening weeks.

“Every season you look at it and don’t think there are any games that look easy,” said Rowett. “There just isn’t any of those games.

“Ipswich, Plymouth and Sheffield Wednesday have come up, so you’re not looking at any of those and thinking ‘oh, that’s an easy winnable game’. And then the three Premier League teams come down. The rest of the teams – your Stokes, your West Broms and your Middlesbroughs – the reality is there is none that you look at favourably.

“You look at the whole and think it is about us. It’s about us getting some form and getting some consistency.

“The only thing that matters is periods like we had last year – where we played Swansea on a Tuesday night and then were at Norwich on a Friday night. They are the periods you look for, within the fixtures, more from a logistical point of view than ‘oh that’s a good period – we should get points’.”