Millwall boss looking to manage Burnley loanee’s workload in early stages of loan

Millwall head coach Joe Edwards was happy to hand Michael Obafemi his debut in today’s 1-1 draw against Preston North End but admitted the young striker’s lack of training time ensured he could only be a late sub.

The Burnley frontman, who joined on loan earlier this week, came on in the 77th minute at The Den.

“He hasn’t played in a long time,” said Edwards, when asked about Obafemi. “He had an injury a while ago but the biggest issue coming into this game was that with the Premier League break, Burnley had probably 10 days off.

“He arrived with us on Tuesday, at the training ground, having done very little training in that period.

“I was keen to get him on the pitch to get him integrated but that was always going to be the limit, in terms of timeframe.

“Now it will be a case of day by day, week by week – seeing what he can put out in training and how he responds to that, in terms of his recovery. He’s a high-speed player and explosive player. In the past he has had some muscle injuries.

“Fitness-wise it won’t be weeks and weeks that he can cope with it from that point of view. It’s just that we’re not exposing him to too much repeated high speed work too soon.

“It’s a case of us exposing him to stuff day by day and week by week – feeding back to him and seeing how he feels.

“I’d say it would be very surprising if we all sat down at the end of this week and get to a point where we feel he can start in the next game.

“Great impact player off the bench. Even there, in a short period of time, he didn’t get loads to work with but there were a couple of moments where his turn of speed gave a bit of hope.

“A really good impact player off the bench – for now – but we’ll be working to build that availability up, as soon as we can, to more and more.

“The minute I had the first conversation with him, he is really motivated. Him and Japh have been offered a chance to come to us and make a statement. They are really happy and excited to be here. They are really motivated to remind people what they are capable of.”