Wallace: We have got to keep the Den a fortress

Murray Wallace said Millwall must not fall into the trap of thinking that their issues this season are all to do with away games and that home form will simply take care of itself, writes Yann Tear.

The Lions were deflated by last weekend’s 2-0 defeat at Sheffield United, which punctured some of the glut of optimism following the opening day win against Stoke.

And coming as it did, just a few days after the Carabao Cup exit at Cambridge, the feeling is that the away form has to pick up if there is to be an improvement on last season’s failed bid to make the top six.

But the 29-year-old defender believes the immediate concern should only be this weekend against Coventry City – and not letting home standards slip.

He said of the Sky Blues: “Coventry have been good and the last few times against them, we’ve found it quite tricky.”

Coventry are unbeaten on their last four visits to the Den, having won twice, and who also thumped the Lions 6-1 in the Midlands just over a year ago.

“More importantly, we don’t want to fall into the trap of thinking we will do well just because we are at home.

“Nothing is ever given to you. We’ve got to keep the Den as a fortress but we have to approach the game right to make that happen.

“We’ve also got to make sure that some of the things we didn’t get right last weekend are not repeated. The performance in Sheffield wasn’t great.

“I think we lacked a bit of quality and composure and shot ourselves in the foot with the goals we conceded.

“It was our own mistakes which cost us. We didn’t do things properly.

“If we give teams opportunities like that, we will get punished and it was a warning sign that we need to concentrate.

“We’ve got to take our home form into our away games, which is easier said than done. But we need to approach all our games with the right mentality – home or away.”

The theme in training this week will have been all about eliminating what Wallace sees as self-inflicted wounds.

He said: “Sheffield United is a tough place to go. But if we hadn’t given them those chances, we might have got something.

“There weren’t many times they carved us open. We still looked solid and a hard team to beat, but we can’t give away cheap opportunities.

“We had a good result on the opening day and morale was high – then we gave it away with a poor performance, but the most frustrating thing was our mistakes,” he said. “We need the mentality that we have to stay concentrated from beginning to end

“If there is a positive, it is that we kept fighting to get back into the game in the second half, even though we were 2-0 down.”

Main Picture by Brian Tonks: Murray Wallace at Bramall Lane