Millwall manager set to check in on midfielder to determine if he needs extra recuperation time

Millwall manager Gary Rowett is due to have a discussion with George Saville about when the midfielder will be ready to return to club duties.

The 29-year-old made 39 appearances in all competitions for the Lions last season and has been on international duty with Northern Ireland.

Saville is due to feature again this evening against Kosovo and then his country have another fixture on Sunday in Cyprus.

It means the former Chelsea and Wolves player has had less down time than some of the Millwall squad, who report back for fitness testing on June 22. The squad have a training camp at Fota Island, in Ireland, just after that.

“The original plan was for him to come back ready to travel to Ireland with the team,” said Rowett. “What I think is important for any player is to make sure they’ve had sufficient break, both mentally and physically.

“I’ll check in with him and see if he managed to get away and what his plans are, what he thinks he needs, to find a good solution for him. He would probably have managed to get away straight away [after the season finished].

“Pre-season is looming and everybody needs to be able to spend a little bit of time with the family. That’s important. In an ideal world I want all the players to go to Ireland as a group to get to know each other.”

Asked if he expected a clean bill of health for the resumption of training, Rowett said: “We’re expecting everyone to be able to train.

“Scottie Malone, with his hamstring, would have been available if we had got to the play-offs and beyond that. Muzza [Murray Wallace] was an interesting one, as he actually tried to play [at Bournemouth] with a grade two [hamstring] injury at the end of the season. So his was a four to six week injury. He’s pretty robust Muzza, he’ll be back and ready to come into training.

“If we have to modify one or two we’ll do that. We had to do that last season with Dan Ballard and Benik [Afobe], if you have got players with a knee issue then you have to treat them slightly differently.

“We found that with Jed a little bit, if you just throw him straight back into everything he gets irritated very quickly with the hard grounds. But the majority of our players will be straight into the thick of it.”