Millwall boss outlines the lessons learned from Charlton pre-season draw

BY ALEX GRACE

Millwall boss Gary Rowett was pleased that his players were given a test in their 2-2 draw with Charlton Athletic on Tuesday evening. 

The Addicks forced their hosts to come from 2-0 down to earn a draw as both teams continued their preparation for the new season, which starts in just two weeks time. 

Millwall have so far only had tests against two League Two sides in Gillingham and Sutton winning both games and not conceding a single goal. The only exception to this was a behind-closed-doors contest against Premier League side Bournemouth last Saturday. 

Speaking after the tie against the Addicks Rowett said, “That was the whole point of it [playing Charlton]. If you look at our pre-season, other than Bournemouth behind closed doors last Saturday the challenge has been ramped up.

“The idea of this game was to get as close to a Championship game, which is never easy to do. 

“Bearing in mind our first game of the season there’s going to be 17-18,000 people here and today there’s 3 or 4,000, which was a brilliant turnout but is very different either way. 

“There’s a bit of you as a player sometimes where you try and protect yourself a little bit. Usually, the team a division below just puts a little bit more into it and shows a little bit more fight, which is not nice to see but you have to accept it’s part of the process. 

“It’s about lessons. The ones we learned from this one were that in the first half, we didn’t do well enough. In the second half, it was much better and some players have done themselves no harm.”