‘We need help’ – Millwall head coach Edwards talks about stretched squad as Bradshaw latest to be sidelined

Millwall head coach Joe Edwards has described the lack of depth of his current playing options as “a problem” after today’s 3-1 defeat to Middlesbrough.

The Lions are yet to make a signing in the January transfer window and have lost the services of Tom Bradshaw, the Wales international missing out today due to a hamstring injury.

The likes of Aidomo Emakhu, Ryan Leonard and Shaun Hutchinson are also unavailable while George Honeyman came off with an issue in the second half against Boro.

Edwards named four youngsters on his bench – Romain Esse, Kamarl Grant, Sashiel Adom-Malaki and Sha’mar Lawson.

“Definitely we’re light – it’s a problem,” said Edwards. “We need help. We have been unlucky with injuries as well. Aidomo’s injury was nonsense (a freak dislocated shoulder) and then Tom Bradshaw’s one was that we trained here on Thursday and it had finished. He was doing some extra finishing and then the final shot – watching it back on the camera and barely anything has happened – and he has now got an injury out of nothing.

“He is a big loss for us.

“I don’t know what Honeyman is going to be yet but when you see what is coming off their bench and I turn around behind me and, with all due respect, it’s great having young players around it but when you are playing at this level – need to go on and effect the game of that intensity and importance of what the scoreline is – it is difficult when the boys from the U21 are making up our bench.

“We’re light in numbers and it’s a bit of an issue, yeah.”

Asked about the quality options and expensive signings that Middlesbrough had to utilise – either starting or on the bench – Edwards said: “I felt that today and in other games.

“I remember being stood down there when we were hanging on a 1-0 lead against Norwich and the subs they started bringing on against us. I kept thinking ‘wow, that is some impact – it’s going to get harder this final 25 minutes’. When we are all fit I’ve got a good squad. I had a period mid-December or late December where I had to leave a player out because everyone was fit and you think ‘that’s unusual’. Then, low and behold, there is now a group of about seven of them down there in their tracksuits that aren’t able to play.

“It hurts us. Particularly when that strongest part of the season was that festive period where we went four clean sheets and three wins – you take out a lot of the core that were doing that and it is going to hit any team.

“We do need to add to the squad because there is kind of a bit of a blueprint and framework – traces of it – in that first half today. But you don’t get anything for winning the first half hour of a football match, especially when you only get one goal from that dominance.”