HUDDERSFIELD Town boss Danny Cowley has praised Millwall’s Neil Harris ahead of the clubs’ clash on Saturday – calling criticism of the Lions manager “unbelievable”.
Millwall haven’t won in five league games and there were some boos after their 2-1 defeat at home to QPR at The Den last Saturday.
Cowley and Harris are friends and are regularly in contact.
“I taught his oldest child [Cameron] and he’s a very good footballer himself and is now at Concord Rangers, which is the first team I managed,” Cowley told local media on Thursday. “We really appreciate Neil’s friendship.
“He’s getting some criticism at the moment which is unbelievable to me, they should build a statue of him as far as I’m concerned.
“You’re always trying to learn and Neil is someone we’ve learned a lot from. We’re looking forward to pitting our wits against him on Saturday and we’re going to be doing everything we can to get a result.
“His team are very resilient, very determined, full of fight, they have good physical presence and incredible energy in midfield. They ask you a lot of questions from restarts, certainly corners in particular, so we know that moment will be critical in a game. When they get the ball into advanced areas they look to get numbers into the box and we have to make sure we’re prepared for that.
“But like all teams we think there’s moments we can exploit as well.”
Huddersfield are without a Championship win this season and lost 4-2 at West Brom last Sunday.
Cowley and his brother and assistant Nicky are aiming to shore up a defence that has conceded 17 times in eight league games.
Danny Cowley added: “For us it’s about trying to compete without getting drawn into a fight and trying to play the way we want to and create a connection with the supporters that in recent times has perhaps been lost.
“We certainly feel on the counter we can make chances to score goals and we’re looking at how we can do it when teams can get back and get organised.
“Defending restarts will be very important against Millwall.
“If you look at mine and Nicky’s careers, we’ve always conceded less than a goal a game. We know good teams are built on defence and that’s important to any side that wants to be a success.
“We were disappointed at the number of goals we conceded on Sunday and we were disappointed with the set-piece goals. We don’t like conceding set-piece goals.
We feel we have a good structure but it requires people to do their roles. It’s about making sure the players understand the game plan and are able to implement it.
“In fairness to the players, it’s a lot of information for them to take in but we’ll be working with them on it and making sure we don’t get caught three-on-two.
“There was some good learning. I’m a simple man, for if the effort isn’t there that is never acceptable, but for technical and tactical errors we can forgive it and we have to take responsibility for it as coaches too. We all have a role to play in winning a football match and I include the supporters in that.”
Image: Millwall FC