Millwall 1 Leeds United 0

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After so many dominant performances thus far this season, I think the phrase we are all looking for after this display in South Bermondsey is “reality check”! I’m really hoping this was just a bad day at the office combined with a really clever game-plan put together by Neil Harris for the Lions. They harried and chased us down and to be honest, they bullied us, much as we did recently to Burton. Millwall restricted Leeds to just a single attempt on goal in 90 minutes and that missed the target; identical to the stats we forced on Burton. At the other end, Millwall fired in 20 attempts and our best player by a long way, and the busiest, was Felix Wiedwald in goal. All over the pitch Millwall were stronger and tougher than we were and to see Steve Morison winning so many balls in the air suggested that he and his team mates were well fired up for this one.

The reality check means that we may need to reassess just how good our side really is. Maybe we are not quite as invincible as some of us believed and perhaps the fact that four of our five league wins to date have come against teams still rooted in the bottom six of the current form table now needs to be factored in too.  Our other league win was against Forest and they are falling like a lead weight in a swimming pool having lost three of their last four. The only side in the current top 9 that we have played so far is Preston and they held us to a nil-nil draw at Elland Road; many said they were actually unlucky not to win that game.

We now face another side that has had a good start, Ipswich Town, next Saturday, in what will now be seen as another acid test as to just how good a side we have assembled for this season.  Ipswich currently sit 5th in the table and they too have mustered 5 wins, just as we have. So for now, we have to just give Millwall credit for doing a job on us and hope and pray that normal service is resumed next week.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, I expect to see the 2nd XI turn out against Burnley in the Carabao Cup; maybe today’s result will also be a reminder to all who play in that one that perhaps Thomas Christiansen’s 1st XI is not quite so set in stone as we perhaps thought it was this time last week!