|
We turned out a new look midfield with three of the four on duty at Reading all out of the side. Tony Grant and Paul Weller were suspended whilst Richard Chaplow missed out for the first time with injury since the last game of last season.
In came Neil Wood, returning from injury, Alan Moore and Bradley Orr who was starting for the first time. Thankfully after a late scare David May was fit to play in defence.
This was nothing like the performance at Reading although it was the Clarets who started the better side and Millwall had to be thankful for on loan goalkeeper Andy Marshall in the opening exchanges as he single handedly kept the home side level.
He saved well from Alan Moore and then got down to foil Ian Moore who once again failed to take advantage of a one-on-one. As Burnley pressed against a hesitant Millwall Orr got in a shot from outside the box and again Marshall made a good save.
It was all looking good but then disaster struck as Millwall went a goal in front when they beat the offside trap. Paul Ifill, what a good player he is, got free down the left and made no mistake as he cut in to shoot past Brian Jensen.
"We don’t play for offsides," Stan said recently. Oh yes we do Stan and we don’t play it very well.
Mo Camara, who was being given a torrid time by the home fans and was clearly affected, appeared to be the player who got it wrong this time.
That led to a short period when Millwall got on top and we could easily have fallen further behind but for Jensen who tipped a long range effort over the top.
We were soon back into it though and the two Moores combined for the miss of the match. Alan was the first of them involved and his effort was cleared off the line but only to Ian who somehow failed to get the ball past the initially stranded keeper. It was a good save but this effort should have been buried.
|
Again it was Marshall who came to the home side’s rescue as he tipped away an effort from Camara but moments later it was 2-0 and what another bad goal to give away.
We won a free kick out on our left hand side almost on the touchline. For some reason Jensen decided to wander out to take it but succeeded only in hitting the kick to a Millwall player.
As Millwall got down their right he got back but was unable to cut out a cross that reached the far post and was headed in by Sweeney.
In the next ten minutes or so Millwall could have completely wrapped it up but both scorers were prevented from adding their second goals by Jensen. He came out quickly to block Ifill and then saved well from Sweeney.
The game turned a bit ugly and Orr got involved with Wise who appeared to stamp on the loan player. What a surprise but once again this nasty piece of work managed to fool both referee and assistant and succeeded in getting Orr in trouble.
Stan brought skipper Graham Branch on for Alan Moore and played him up front, it is fair to say that the change did nothing for us as Branch failed to have any impact.
Glen got himself booked and when he looked to be losing it he was quickly replaced, a red card was the last thing we wanted. By now Millwall were allowing us a lot of the ball but we weren’t threatening at all.
Then in a mad two minutes we managed to get ourselves a couple more suspensions in the most bizarre of ways. Mo Camara had a word with the assistant, he seemed to be indicating at the crowd who were still giving him some abuse. The assistant immediately flagged and got Mo yellow carded.
Less than a minute later the assistant trapped Branch in the same way after he ironically applauded yet another bad decision. Both of them will now miss the game at Coventry in two weeks after collecting their fifth yellow cards.
There was just time for Millwall’s Man of the Match, keeper Andy Marshall, to make one last save before referee Alan Butler brought it to an end.
It wasn’t a good game, played in an awful atmosphere, and the result was fair despite Marshall being their best player.
After some good midfield performances in recent weeks we were certainly badly hit by the absence of both Tony Grant and Richard Chaplow. Both have been playing well and Grant in particular has recently been in outstanding form.
It was too much to ask two inexperienced players to replace them. Neil Wood did OK but Bradley Orr had a debut he will want to forget.
Lee Roche was the pick for me and having struggled at times has been in much better form in recent games.
It’s fourteen league games away from home now without a win, or 7 points from the last 42, and that sort of form could still get us in trouble come the end of the season and we are not going to improve it with performances like this.
We weren’t helped by some very inept performances by the officials who gave the impression that the intimidating atmosphere was affecting their performances. Alan Butler had a dreadful afternoon whilst his assistant to our right just continued to make a complete fool of himself.
Forest, Watford and Rotherham have all won today and we will need to perform a lot better than this over the coming weeks if we want to avoid being in trouble at the end of the season.
The teams were,
Millwall: Andy Marshall, Kevin Muscat, Matt Lawrence, Darren Ward, Robbie Ryan, Peter Sweeney, Dennis Wise, Marvin Elliott, Tim Cahill, Paul Ifill (Mark McCammon 72), Neil Harris. Subs not used: Willy Gueret, Andy Roberts, John Sutton, Kevin Braniff.
Burnley: Brian Jensen, Lee Roche (Dean West 83), David May, Mark McGregor, Mo Camara, Glen Little (Luke Chadwick 72), Bradley Orr, Neil Wood, Alan Moore (Graham Branch 54), Robbie Blake, Ian Moore. Sub not used: Paul Rachubka.
Referee: Alan Butler (Sutton-in-Ashfield).