MILLWALL travel to Bristol City trying to avoid an 11th game without a win for the first time since the 2013-14 season.
The Lions are in their lowest position since Gary Rowett took charge, 17th in the Championship table after being fourth after their last win, 2-0 at Preston in October.
They are 10 points off sixth place, a position Bristol City – just one point off the play-offs – will be targeting on Tuesday night with a win.
Worryingly for the Lions, they are finding goals so hard to come by. That win at Deepdale was the last time they scored more than once in a game.
It throws up a conundrum for Rowett: stick with the players that did so well last season, or give a first league start to Tyler Burey, who has looked such an attacking threat off the bench recently.
Millwall badly need attacking players to hit form. None of Matt Smith, Jon Dadi Bodvarsson, Tom Bradshaw or Mason Bennett have scored more than one league goal this season. That kind of form just doesn’t sustain a top-six challenge, something the Lions were expected to do this season, and something Rowett demanded.
Top-scorer Jed Wallace is five games without a goal but others need to step up and provide that threat.
The Robins have been wildly inconsistent this season. Dean Holden’s team won their first four league games this season, didn’t win any of their next five including three defeats, rattled off another three consecutive victories and go into this contest with three losses and two wins in their last five fixtures.
That inconsistency was summed up as they lost 2-0 at 20th-place Rotherham at the weekend, after which Holden challenged his side to respond against Millwall.
“It was the first game this season where we’ve not performed at our level,” Holden said. “We didn’t have enough quality on the day to find a way through their press. The players have already proved this season that they can respond to a defeat and that’s now the challenge again.
“They’re a big, physical side and sometimes you have to go up against that and when you don’t perform at your levels you get beaten.”
Rowett has options to shake up his side as he considers whether to pick a back five or a back four.
The Lions manager played 5-2-3 in a 2-1 win at Ashton Gate last December and was hugely impressed with his team, saying it was “as good a performance away from home as you are going to see and we opened them up at will.”
How Rowett will hope he is saying something similar on Tuesday night.
Possible Millwall starting XI: 5-2-3: Bialkowski; Romeo, Hutchinson, M Wallace, Cooper, Malone; Woods, Leonard; J Wallace, Parrott, Bennett.
Match odds: Bristol City 4/7 Draw 9/4 Millwall 7/4
Last meeting: Championship (February 29, 2020): Millwall 1-1 Bristol City (Smith, 51; Lopes Pereira, 10).
Image: Millwall FC