MILLWALL have kept four clean sheets in their last five games – with boss Neil Harris lauding the side’s recently defensive stability.
The Lions’ 1-0 win at Derby County on Wednesday night was a third consecutive game without conceding a goal and they have now lost just twice in 12 games.
And after only two clean sheets in the first half of the season – 23 games – Millwall have five in their last nine in the Championship.
“I talked a lot tonight about trust in the group and the trust comes from trusting the man next to you, the unit and the man behind you,” Harris said. “The team again trusts the defenders. I think early in the season we had a spell, which we never had last year and was going to come at some stage, where we were making individual errors and we were getting punished for every error we made, the ball was ending up in the back of our net.
“That can’t continue. We have found a mentality back again, individuals have found form. They can rely on each other, they make a mistake and they know someone is going to get them out of a hole. And when you have got that in the backline that gives you trust in your front players to know that if they get a chance and put it away we are likely to win the game.
“Noughts and ones are so important in football, but for Millwall at our level, any clean sheet is a huge bonus for us. We built our foundations last year on it and we tried second half of the season from Christmas onwards to get our mentality back again.”
Harris also paid tribute to the Millwall fans who made the trip.
He said: “Part of our plan was just to make the ground quiet, frustrate the Derby fans who wanted to get behind their team and then bring our fans into play.
“The 4-500 who were here, credit to them because there are some big games to look forward to, so to come up here on a Wednesday night…we needed that, we needed that in the last 10 minutes after we scored. They were outstanding – a big thank you to them.”
Image: Millwall FC