adminMillwall to act quickly in January transfer window – and other takeaways from wide-ranging Steve Gallen interview
MILLWALL plan to move quickly in the January transfer window to reinforce an injury-hit squad and are bracing for bids for some of their players, director of football Steve Gallen said.
The Lions were without eleven players against Hull City last weekend, including all seven senior central midfielders.
Despite the extensive injury list, Alex Neil’s side are fourth in the Championship ahead of their trip to Ewood Park this weekend.
Billy Mitchell and Ryan Leonard are in contention to return on Saturday, but with most absentees further away in their recovery, Millwall will be looking to strengthen depleted areas of the pitch quickly.
In a wide-ranging interview with MillwallTV, Gallen discussed his plans for the upcoming window.
‘They’re all going to plan,” Gallen said. “I see this one as a little bit more of a sprint, this month, rather than the longer one, which is over about four months.
“We just always have to be prepared for all eventualities. We’ve got a good team, and we’ve got a good squad, a big squad. A lot of injuries, obviously. But people are coming to watch our players. I see the scouts list every week, and there are a lot of big clubs. Premier League clubs, but clubs from abroad are coming to watch us regularly. In my mind, I have to be prepared, that there could be some offers for some of our players.
“In some ways, I don’t want that, but in other ways, we have to take that as a compliment. If people want our players, we have to be looking and saying that we’re all doing a good job. When I say we’re all, the manager, his staff, the media, the sports science, the recruitment. If we’ve got players out on that pitch that Premier League clubs and top European clubs are after, then we all have to take that as a compliment.
“I think a part of it will be trying to hold on to our players. There are one or two players in particular who I think have been outstanding in the last few months, so we’ll have to keep an eye on that situation.
“But, of course, we want to add to the team. We want to make the team better, we want to make the squad better. Always thinking like that. I think there’s a short-term need. With the injuries that we’ve got, there’s a short-term need to try and get one or two in early, reassess when players come back around the middle of the month, and then see how we’re looking for the end of the month.
“A year ago, I said we could be bringing one or two in. Then we brought about four to five players in, or something like that. I don’t want to give you a number. I don’t know exactly right now, but the team certainly needs a bit of immediate support.
“Then we’ll go to work and see how it looks at the end of the month. We’re spending more, I think, than anticipated, as it stands right now. There are no cutbacks or anything like that. There’s no thinking like that. I’ve mentioned that the chairman is very supportive. He wants us to do well always. He’ll rarely say no to Alex or me about something. So he will always try and help.
“I think a month ago, there were four or five players who weren’t playing in the first team. Ra’ees Bangura-Williams, for example, Dan Kelly and Derek [Mazou-Sacko]. There was a stage where they weren’t even in the squad. I’m looking at January, thinking, these guys might need to go out on loan. Our younger players need to be playing, potentially in League One, to then come back to us.
“But then obviously, you get a few injuries, and they’re all playing in the team, which is great for them. We just have to be ready for all eventualities. Right now, it’s going to be hard to let too many players go out the door because we’re so short, but that could change by the end of the month.
“One or two might need to go and play football, like George Evans. Alfie Massey went to Wealdstone, of course. Adam Mayor at Cambridge. So they might need to go out to play. But always thinking we’ve got to protect our team, protect our club. That’s always the first thing on my mind. I don’t want to leave us short.”
Gallen also addressed several topics, ranging from the previous window, contract negotiations, loan strategy, injuries and Millwall’s new head of performance
Summer transfer window
“It was really busy, I won’t lie to you. To me, it felt like it lasted for four months. From the last game, Burnley away, to September 2, when the transfer window ended, it was pretty much four months, and it feels like you are working every single minute of every single day. That’s what it feels like to me. You are trying to get players in from the start, and then around the middle, then you try and get one or two at the end if you can.
“I’ve thought this for a while because the average age of the squad was quite high when I first came into the football club, this was always going to land on somebody and you make a decision, you either continue with all the senior players and give them another year or another two, but then you’re going to have to deal with it at some stage. So there was a big turnover. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like to see some of the senior players leaving because there were some great characters in there, and really nice lads, and you get to know them well when you’re in the training ground every day.
“But you also recognise that you’ve got to create opportunities, you’ve got to create spaces for the younger players, so then someone like a Derek [Mazou-Sacko], can come in and start expressing himself. We’ve got to create new big characters. We’ve got to create new opportunities for the new players as well, and I think that’s just going to keep evolving and evolving. Players will go, others will come in. What we’re trying to do is to just keep improving the team and the squad all the way through.”
Revamping the goalkeeping department
“It was complicated, especially with losing Andy Marshall as well, the goalie coach, who was a big character around the place. Great bloke. Still speak to him. As it happens, I’ve known Marsh a long time. We brought Steven Benda in from Fulham, and we had a few options at that time, who we would potentially bring in, but we wanted somebody with Championship experience who could come in and start playing straight away. We brought Joel Coleman in because we needed some cover. Part of that was that we wanted to allow George Evans to go out on loan. He finished the season superbly for us, playing in the first team. He did great, George, and he’s doing well at Hartlepool now.
“Then obviously we brought in Max Crocombe as well, and Max has done really well. Did I know he was going to do this well? I knew he was a good goalkeeper, and I’d watched some of his games for New Zealand in the summer, and that pretty much sold it in the end. Really pleased for Max. He’s done great. What a good story, for him to be playing non-league not that many years ago, playing at Burton in the last couple of years, and then come to us playing in the Championship, and fingers crossed, going to be the first-choice goalkeeper for New Zealand in the summer at the World Cup. For us fans, we’ll be looking at one of our own players playing in the World Cup, so I’m absolutely delighted for him.”
Japhet Tanganga
“The rumours that are being said on the outside don’t always help the situation because I’m always thinking in my head, ‘What’s the best thing for the club? What is the best thing for the team?’ So in the end, Japhet wanted to go, so there was no one on our end forcing him out. We’re trying to keep our best players here, of course. But Sheffield United made him a fantastic offer, and made us a fantastic offer.
“We rebuked quite a few offers from clubs, in Italy in particular, and there was interest here in England, but we held on, and we held on, and we ended up getting a fantastic deal for the football club. Considering we actually got Japhet on a free transfer a year before, to then sell him for that amount so that we could reinvest, and we have reinvested that. I just want to add, Japhet was brilliant, by the way. Brilliant for our team, brilliant for our club. The fans loved him. The players loved him. In the end, it was like a handshake. Everybody was happy. He left, we shook his hand, and then we could use that money for replacements.”
Caleb Taylor
“It starts with Caleb when he first goes on loan, and our scouts are out there watching. We also have data on all players in England and most of the clubs in Europe, so we can see who’s doing well. In particular, what younger players are out there doing well. Then, for me personally, I remember going to Wycombe probably last November, so about thirteen months ago, and having a look at their players. I’m doing that all the time in League One in particular, League Two, I’m going abroad. I saw that they had two good centre-backs at Wycombe. One was 22, one was 21, which was Caleb. I came back, I sat down with our scouts, and I said, ‘Look, this lad’s not bad.’ They said, ‘We’ve already got quite a few reports on him.’
“Then it’s a little bit of reaching out to his agent, who I know quite well. He was a very good football player. He used to play for Watford. So just reaching out to him and saying, ‘Hey, we like your player. He’s doing really well,’ that kind of thing. Then, when we started to think over the summer, ‘Look, we’re potentially going to be losing Japhet here,’ we then start going in a little bit stronger with West Brom. I know Ian Pearce very well. He’s their director of football. I speak to him quite a bit anyway, outside of talking about players.
“We started to work out a deal, and then when we came close, when we realised Japhet’s maybe going in the next week potentially, we thought, ‘Let’s just step it right up with Caleb.’ Partly because if a club sees how much what we’re getting for our player being sold, then the price can get inflated for the player they’re being sold. We’re always trying, if we can, to replace before somebody walks out the door. Doesn’t always work like that, but that’s what we’re trying to do. Caleb came in. I think Caleb’s a really, really good player. For me personally, he was the best young defender in League One last year, and we had a few options, and I was speaking to a few different clubs and players at that time, but he was always our number one option, and I think he’s got a very bright future.”
Comparing Millwall to Championship rivals
“It got a heck of a lot easier when Romain [Esse] started playing in the first team regularly, and that was pretty much at the start of last season. So all of our younger academy players see him as the flag bearer, if you want to call him that, playing out there every week, playing really, really well for England under-20s. It’d been a while since we’d done that at this football club, brought somebody all the way through to be playing out there. Then for him to be sold on to a Premier League club, and watching him on TV, Match of the Day and stuff like that. Again, for our younger players, it made them feel that they can actually do that.
“Since then, Ra’ees Bangura-Williams has come in and played in the first team, George Evans as well. Jack Howland has signed a new contract. Rafiq [Lamptey] has signed a new contract. Alfie Massey has signed a new contract. These lads are tied down on long-term contracts. They’re our players. They want to be here. When I first walked through the door, a lot of my conversations with representatives and agents were, ‘You don’t do that at Millwall.’ They were all saying to me, ‘Steve, we like you, and we take your word for it, but show us the proof.’ So Romain playing and Aidomo [Emakhu] playing, I know he didn’t come through the academy, but coming in at a young age and being out there on the pitch and playing regularly has shown everybody internally that they can do that.
“The Romain situation was massive for us. Financially, it was fantastic and again, by the way, I haven’t mentioned this, our chairman has been so supportive, letting us spend so much of the money we brought in from the sale to Crystal Palace. But what Romain gave everybody was belief. I’m talking about internally, but also externally, because I have so many more agents ringing me now with their young players about potentially coming to us than I did when I first came in. I would say that it’s massively changed the perception of us – developing our own players, developing young players and going in there and playing first team football regularly.”
Potential loan exits
“I think the most important thing when you loan a player out is that they are going to be playing. The worst thing we could do is loan a player somewhere, and they’re a sub every week, or they’re not in the squad. And that does happen, by the way. So you can quite often put in stipulations that make sure that they do play.
“For us, Adam Mayor is at Cambridge, and he’s doing very well. He enjoys it and there’s been interest from higher [divisions], like from League One. That’s a situation that will develop in the next few weeks.
“George Evans is playing for Hartlepool. To have a 20-year-old goalkeeper playing regularly at that level full-time is rare. He’s loving it out there. The team is winning matches. It’s a long way up, of course, but I imagine he doesn’t want to come back. Again, if something comes up, maybe a higher division, we’ll consider that.
“Alfie Massey was doing very, very well at Wealdstone, and unfortunately, he got injured, so he’s back in with us every day, but as soon as he gets himself back fit, he’ll be moving out as well.
“I think there are one or two other younger lads that we will look to loan, but we’ll only do that when we have some of the first-team players back fit. The loan players are important. Scott Fitzgerald, the academy manager, is a bit more involved in that now, so we pretty much work that between me, him, and the manager. We work on who’s going on loan, where they’re going on loan. I’m glad Scott [works with us on it], because the younger lads that have come through him, he has a real affinity for them and knows them very, very well. He’s keen to be involved in that, and I’m keen to have him do that too.”
Expiring contracts
“I’m in conversations with everybody at the club whose contracts are running out. I’m quite relaxed about it. Being high up in the table helps that situation. If you were looking over your shoulder, you’d be worried about that. I would imagine for any players whose contracts are coming up, if they’re out there playing every week in a team that’s in the top six, there’s going to be a lot of other clubs looking in. So I don’t think they’d be particularly worried about it either.
“We’re all pretty relaxed about this. I speak to Alex about this almost every day, speak to the chairman about it almost every day. We’re talking to everybody. There will be some movement, I would imagine, moving forward in the next couple of months with these players, hopefully. All I ever think about is just making sure that we have the best team out there on the pitch as often as we can.”
Injuries
“Obviously, it hurts. It hurts the fans, it hurts the staff. Alex sometimes comes into my office, and he says to me, ‘Steve, he’s got injured.’ I can see poor Alex is devastated about it. But the most important person it always hurts is the player. I think we need to never lose sight of that. Whether it’s Josh Coburn or Dan Kelly or it’s Japhet, who had problems with his knee for years and couldn’t get through too many games in a row, those players are hurting badly when they’re injured. They feel like they’re on the periphery. When they see us beat Southampton, they’re delighted, of course, and scoring in the last minute, but they don’t feel like they’re quite part of it. I think what we have to make sure we all do, and I certainly do it at the training ground, and the staff, is make sure the injured players are obviously getting their treatment, but they’re getting support mentally. Talk to them, make sure that they’re okay.
“I think as well on social media, there’s lots of talk about that these days. I think we all have to be careful what we say regarding our younger players because they will be reading that, and nobody wants to be injured. We’re all trying to support them at the training ground. I always think about the player first rather than the team or the club, in that moment. We all need to get round and support them. But when a lot of these players come back in January and potentially February and onwards, it will feel potentially like, ‘Oh, we’ve got a new team coming in to support the run in.’ So absolute credit, I’ve got to say, to the players that are out there at the moment giving every single thing that they’ve got and when we get a bit more support come January with the players coming back, hopefully we’ll have a very strong squad.”
New head of performance
“We picked up a number of injuries around September. It was about that period where we started talking about that we might want to bring in someone to oversee the whole department. A group of players came back in October, and then a few got injured again, unfortunately. Between Mark Fairbrother and me in particular, and then with Alex’s support towards the end, we’ve been interviewing different candidates for six, seven, eight weeks now, to get the right person. It’s not always easy to get the right person on day one, because they’re working for other clubs. We had a good recruitment process. We met seven or eight different candidates who were high-quality, I think.
“Jonathan Northeast was our top choice. He started last week. He didn’t want any big fanfares or anything like that. He’s not that type of person. I think what he wants to do, in particular, in the first couple of weeks, is just assess everything, everything that the players have done, their minutes, their training minutes, their loads, how many sprints they’re doing, their recovery, their diet, looking into everything. Then he will step forward a little bit more now in the coming weeks. The immediate plan for him would be to get our players back on the pitch. But then after that, it was making sure that they stay on the pitch. He’s been a good addition, and I’m pleased we’ve got him.”
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