admin‘Biggest challenge’: The huge Millwall concern troubling Alex Neil with Portsmouth ready to pounce
Pompey were defeated in all three contests against Millwall in all competitions last season.
Alex Neil has admitted Millwall’s ‘biggest challenge’ this season has been a continuous battle with injuries.
And the Lions head coach has highlighted the tough test which awaits his side against Pompey in Saturday’s Championship contest at Fratton Park.
John Mousinho’s men have had their fair share of injury issues in the opening weeks of the campaign, with the likes of Josh Murphy, Conor Shaughnessy, Callum Lang and other key personnel sidelined at various points.
Although the Blues have been massively impacted by player availability, Millwall make the trip to the south coast this weekend in the midst of a fitness crisis.
As many as 11 first-team regulars are either a major doubt or have already been ruled out by Neil as injury problems mount at The Den.
And those issues have restricted the head coach’s ability to keep his side consistent throughout the opening three months of the campaign, which the Lions boss made clear has been his ‘biggest challenge’ so far this term.
What has been Millwall’s ‘biggest challenge’ this season
He told the Southwark News: ‘After each batch of games, we always try and reflect on them and how we’ve done and what we’ve done and how we can do better and what’s coming up and try to get guys fit and try to adapt and evolve the shape in terms of what we’re trying to do.
‘I think the biggest challenge this year is, I’ve said it quite a few times before, just consistency in terms of personnel and consistency in terms of style.
‘Naturally, when you’ve got players missing, whether people like it or not, it does affect how we try and play because every player’s strengths are different.
‘What we’re trying to do is set the lads up in a manner and a system which helps accentuate their strengths and maybe masks their weaknesses, which every player’s got.
‘For us, it’s much more complex when we’ve got players missing because we need to try and find maybe other ways of pressing the ball, maybe other ways of retaining the ball and carrying that threat.
‘That’s not particularly helpful, but we’ve had a good amount of time now to try and get that organised for the game.’
What Alex Neil has said ahead of Pompey
Pompey have had a poor start of the season and head into Saturday’s contest, having won just one of their previous 11 Championship matches.
And despite Millwall sitting sixth in the table after picking up 25 points from their opening 15 matches, Neil is adamant Saturday’s trip to Fratton will be far from plain sailing.
‘I think it’ll be a difficult game. I like Portsmouth. John’s got them well organised. At home in particular, they’re a tough prospect.
‘They’ve not been in great form recently, which is going to make for a really good atmosphere. More importantly, they’ll be at it, and they’ll be aggressive. They’ll run and they’ll fight. We need to match all those qualities.
‘Most of their games up to this point this season have been by the odd goal. There haven’t been loads in the games. I’ve watched a lot of the games recently, particularly at home. We know we’re going to have to perform well if we want to win the game.’
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