‘Something we have to do– Joe Edwards address Millwall’s struggles against Coventry as they look to
The Lions had much possession but struggled to make chances during their 0-3 defeat to Coventry
JOE Edwards believes Millwall have to keep plugging away as they look to gradually “evolve” their style.
The head coach endured his first bump in the road yesterday as his Lions side lost 3-0 against Coventry.
A major subplot of his reign has been the change of style that he is looking to transform over time.
Millwall had far more of the ball than usual yesterday but struggled going forward against Coventry in what was only Edwards’ second game in charge.
Speaking in yesterday’s press conference, he emphasised the importance of pressing.
Edwards said: “When you are a team that doesn’t have a lot of the ball typically you can work hard but if you are in the middle or the deeper parts of the pitch in a block as a team, it’s not necessarily as taxing as it is when you’ve got to be that team that’s on the front foot and high pressing.
“That’s what we want to do, particular when you’ve got a home crowd like we’ve got at somewhere like The Den, you want to be on the front foot. But it does mean players in every part of the pitch, whether that’s your central defenders following people in or your attacking players starting that press and running at speed, that is what it takes.
“And I think if you look at the top teams across the leagues in modern day football I think people can understand what we are trying to evolve into here.
“As much as people can talk about ball possession and build up play when they talk about playing style, most of the top teams their distance from back to front as a team is small and that requires a lot of running and running at high speed. The most successful teams at the highest level in this country in recent years, the Liverpools and the Man Citys, for all the stuff they do to you when they’ve got the ball, they absolutely run all over you for 90 minutes.
“We did a lot of work in the Sheffield Wednesday game and we saw the rewards for that. Today I thought a team came here and looked sharper than us. That’s definitely going to be something we have to keep working on.”
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