Manager Neil Harris has admitted Millwall were far from their best in Tuesday evening’s victory over Fleetwood Town but he did pick out two players for special praise owing to their individual performances.
Hosting Fleetwood at The Den and taking a one nil victory courtesy of a Steve Morison goal in the second half, the three points moved Millwall into fourth place in the League One table.
Harris was obviously delighted with that as he spoke to the official site in his post game press interviews, but he had to concede the performance wasn’t great.
With that said, he’d take the three points regardless at this stage of the year.
‘We were certainly nowhere near our best tonight. But how often are you at this stage of the season? At times this season we’ve lost or drawn games when we should have won and maybe tonight was the other way around. If you look at what the difference was between the two teams you can pick out the quality of the finish for the winning goal. It was one of the best goals I’ve seen Steve score for Millwall. At this stage of the season it is only about the points for all clubs. Tonight was scrappy but we got the win, and that is all that counts. The victory was all about the passion, desire and commitment of the players.’
As for the two players who took special praise following the 90, Morison was obviously one of them but goalkeeper Jordan Archer was the other, with Harris picking out his double save in second half stoppage time.
‘Steve has been outstanding. He’s been a real talisman for us. Lee Gregory has had a lot of plaudits because he has scored more goals, and he’s been outstanding, but Steve leads the team and brings that experience. He has that Millwall knowledge. When you’re not at your best sometimes you have to rely on people. We relied on Steve to score us a goal tonight but at the other end a special mention has to go to Jordan. The fella doesn’t like conceding goals and he prides himself on clean sheets, as all keepers do. I thought his discipline and shot stopping was outstanding tonight and when we needed him he stood up to the task.’
With Millwall ending the game with Mahlon Romeo, Ben Thompson, Fred Onyedinma, Aiden O’Brien and Jamie Philpot on the pitch, Harris obviously pointed to the future and growing our own legends for years to come, and he felt that was a good sign to the fans of his faith in our youngsters.
‘What we’re trying to do at this club is bring the youngsters through and if you don’t give them that opportunity to experience nights like that, when your backs are against the wall, then how are they going to learn? I will continue to give the young lads a chance this season, the next and further into the future.’