ALEX Neil explained why Millwall shifted to a three-man midfield against Norwich City.
Neil made two changes from his side’s 2-1 win over Middlesbrough three days prior, replacing the injured Billy Mitchell with Barry Bannan and swapping striker Mihailo Ivanovic for attacking midfielder Luke Cundle, changing formation from a 4-4-2 to a 4-2-3-1.
The Lions were poor in the first half, and Neil acted quickly, bringing on Ivanovic for Cundle at half-time and playing with two strikers.
The substitute struck eleven minutes into the second half, but Norwich hit back through Pelle Mattson and Oscar Schwartau to take all three points.
“Losing Billy was a bit of a blow for us,” Neil said.
“The problem we had was certainly in the middle of the pitch. It’s just energy. In terms of it’s only Casper [De Norre]’s second game back. If I’m being honest, if Billy were fit and available, Casper would have probably played 45 minutes, maybe 60 tops. The problem we’ve got is we’ve lost Bill, if we flog Casper and he breaks down, which certainly, in his first couple of games back, was always going to be a possibility, then we’re in a bit of a pickle in midfield in terms of the normal starting two would be missing. That was a bit of a concern.
“That’s why I put an extra midfield player in there to try and conserve Casper’s legs, so we didn’t flog him, basically. I knew I was going to have to take him off potentially later on as the game wore on. But you do that, you need to move the ball well, and we didn’t move the ball well enough.”
