Millwall’s change of attitude has helped them chalk up more Championship victories

Gary Rowett is pleased with Millwall’s start to the Championship season – but is fully aware that the league has not even hit the halfway stage yet.

The Lions are sixth in the table and resume action on Saturday in a lunchtime kick-off at Sunderland.

Millwall have made their best start to the second tier campaign in a decade.

Asked if it is easier to be in a play-off position or chasing the lead pack at this stage, Rowett told the South London Press: “Having been in the Championship for a long time, I don’t think you can pick where you are at what point or what is your ideal scenario. You’ve got to keep chalking up wins and chalking up the points.

“What I like about the team in the first 20 games is that we have won nearly half the games. Where we have found it tough previously is trying to be unbeaten or not lose many games – feeling like that is progress. Maybe this year we have not worried so much about losing games in the desire to try and win them.

“We have had some reward from that attitude and outlook.

“I track the points in a more linear process – there are 46 games, how many points to do we need per game, on average? I just keep tracking that, I don’t look at blocks of games, we’re on course roughly for my own targets for the team.

“The challenge is once you have done that, that’s great, but you’ve got another 26 games to go. It’s all very nice that we’re sat in sixth place but if you bounce out then you’re chasing it – that’s fine as long as you’re not too far off the action and can still get consistency. Then it’s just whether we can take that last step. That will be a conversation probably at 40 games, rather than 20.

“I always look at where we are compared to previous seasons and we have three or four points more, which is nice. But that’s all it is.”