Millwall boss wants players to get minutes – but won’t take risks

BY RICHARD CAWLEY

Millwall will play first-team sides at Cambridge United today and also in Tuesday’s friendly at Colchester United – but boss Neil Harris will be carefully watching the fitness of his players to avoid unnecessary injuries.

“It will certainly be senior teams going to Cambridge and Colchester,” said the Lions manager. “Some we’ll be hoping get 90 minutes in one of the games, some are still working their minutes and looking at 70s or 80s.

“It is all about the final product, players reaching what we see as hitting their minutes by the time we get to the Middlesbrough game.

“Certainly the next two games give us a really good opportunity to get those match value minutes into the players but without pushing them to the extreme.

“We have to consider the heavy loads the players had in Portugal, the travel and weather – we might be looking at Saturday and Tuesday with the naked eye – who is looking fresh when we get to the latter stages? Who looks more fatigued? Nothing is set in stone beforehand. If you do push people too far that’s where injuries occur.”