Millwall Opposition View: ‘We always get a hard match when we play Luton’
Millwall's Danny McNamara in action with Luton Town's Elijah Adebayo
As the international break winds down, it's time for us Luton fans to shift focus back to Championship action. And what better way to get back into the thick of it than a gritty away trip to Millwall? It’s far from an easy fixture, especially considering our rough start to the season. With just the solitary point and sitting in 23rd, the Hatters desperately need to turn things around.
Millwall, meanwhile, are coming off the back of a confidence-boosting 3-0 victory over Sheffield Wednesday, even if that was two weeks ago. Their home form always poses a challenge, but could this be the moment the season gets back on track?
To get a deeper understanding of what we can expect from Millwall, I had the pleasure of speaking with Nick from Achtung! Millwall Podcast.
Q: Finally it’s the end of the international break, how do you feel about your team's performances in the league so far?
A: Performance-wise it’s been a mix of playing some decent patches of football, quite attacking in style, before undoing all the good stuff with slapstick individual errors. Apart from a decent defensive showing at Hull, we’ve scored comparatively freely compared with previous seasons, culminating in an excellent 3-0 win over Sheffield Wednesday just before the interminable international break struck.
We are of course hoping that we’ll pick up where we left off two weeks ago this Saturday versus Luton … we shall see.
Q: Have you got, or are you expecting any key players to miss out?
A: In a very Millwall fashion, we made our record £2.3m signing of Mihailo Ivanovic from Serbia on the stroke of Deadline Day, only for it to be announced that he has a metatarsal issue and so won’t be available until November. As promising as the 19 year old looks, this isn’t much comfort when he’ll miss out on around eight (at the least) Championship fixtures.
Other injuries include midfielder Billy Mitchell and another promising signing who we’ve barely seen in Adam Mayor.
Q: Who are the players we should be worried about facing?
A: The main two players I’d flag up are Japhet Tanganga in defence. Signed from Spurs after being on loan with us last season, he is our defensive rock. Take him away and we’re like Superman with red Kryptonite. Include him and we look a very decent defensive outfit.
Further forward, our attacking talisman and local boy is Romaine Esse. An England U21 cap, this boy has all the ingredients. Flair, inventiveness and now defensive strength - the winning combination. Expect him to go to the very top table of the game.
Q: Are there any Luton players that cause you concern?
A: Forgive me, but I don’t know enough about this season’s Luton squad to offer much in the way of comment for you. But I do expect a hard game from a club that would expect to have made a better start to the campaign than they’ve had so far.
Q: What are your expectations for this game and what is your score prediction?
A: As I’ve said, we always get a hard match when we play Luton. I’m expecting a more ‘end to end’ match than we had versus Sheffield Wednesday, with less Poundland tiki-taka passing going nowhere in defence.
If we can maintain our recent elimination of individual errors, then I fancy us to win it. If we revert back to the early season Keystone Kops defending, then Luton will have a good chance.
Just one goal will win it either way, but I’ll go for a 1-0 win for the Lions, mainly because I can never bring myself to predict a loss for the Lions!