LUKE CUNDLE could not have had a better start to his Millwall career.
Only a day after his move from Wolverhampton Wanderers was officially announced, the number ten was thrust into the starting line up against Queens Park Rangers at The Den on February 1, and soon showed why the Lions fought to secure his signature.
Just 25 minutes into his debut, George Saville crashed a header off the crossbar. For a moment, both sides froze as the ball bounced straight into the six-yard box with Hoops goalkeeper Paul Nardi prone on the ground.
QPR centre-back Morgan Fox, not fully sensing the danger, moved to clear the ball but did not react quickly enough – Cundle ghosted in front of him and nodded the ball into the empty net. 2-1 Millwall, three points in the bag.
The 22-year-old has since become indispensable to Alex Neil – starting nine out of the next ten games, before finally getting a breather against Stoke City on March 15.
It is a far cry from how the season started for Cundle. After three successful loan spells at Championship clubs Swansea City, Plymouth Argyle and Stoke City, the Warrington Town youth player returned to Wolves, looking to add to his seven senior appearances that included two Premier League starts in the 2021-22 season.
Instead, Cundle found game time hard to come by – making the match-day squad on four occasions but never being brought off the bench.
Come January, he thought it was time to leave.
“I just thought it was time for me to move on at Wolves,” Cundle said. “I’d been there for a long, long time and I just started feeling that it wasn’t to be at Wolves.
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“I obviously wanted to move on and come back to the Championship and play football. I spoke with the manager here and I had a really good chat with him and it was going to be nowhere else really. I wanted to come here.
“He doesn’t just say things you want to hear. I felt like it was all truthful what he was saying and that’s a big part for me. For a manager and a player relationship, trust and honesty is the best way forward.”
Cundle has enjoyed working with Neil so far.
“He’s really detailed,” Cundle said. “So when you go out onto the pitch, every one of us knows what we’re doing, with and without the ball.
“He’s very clear and very open in how he comes across. I think that’s good for the players as well. There’s no fifty-fifties in your head, you know what you’re doing, it makes it a lot easier for you.
“This break gives him the time to get some more ideas across, because obviously every game has been Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday, Wednesday.”
Cundle has also enjoyed integrating into a squad that has a strong leadership group at its core.
“We’ve got a nice mixture to be honest,” Cundle. “There’s a lot of senior heads in the group which lead the group every day, timings and stuff like this. It’s just little things around the training ground, which you probably don’t see from the outside, but that all helps. I’ve just enjoyed my first couple of months here, meeting the lads and getting to know them all.”
Part of the dressing room culture is fines for infractions – and Cundle has fallen afoul of the rules a few times.
“There’s all sorts of fines in that changing room,” Cundle said. “It goes across me sometimes, but if I have a fine you just pay it.
“There’s all sorts of stupid ones. If you drink anything but water in the changing room, it’s a fine. That baffled me, but like I said, I pick things up on the job so you’ve just got to kind of look around and see what people are getting fined for and just do it your own way.”
Cundle has managed to avoid an initiation ceremony so far.
“To be honest, they don’t do it here,” Cundle said. “I think you only do it if it’s a pre-season get together. So I got away with that one to be honest.”
When asked if he would sing a song in pre-season, Cundle joked: “Nah, too long in then. That’s my excuse. I’ll be six months in.”
Cundle has become one of the most reliable names on the team sheet over the past two months, but playing so many games started to affect him before the break.
“I think the break came at a good time for me personally,” Cundle said. “Going from playing no games at the start of the season to playing near enough every game.
“I thought the last few weeks, it took a toll on me. I felt it in the game and I wasn’t where I wanted to be, the standards I’m normally at. The break came at a good time and hopefully now I’m refreshed and I’m ready to go.”
With eight games left in the season, and the Lions six points off the play-off spots, Cundle wants to stay in the hunt without putting too much pressure on himself or his team.
“For the team [our goal] is can we keep our season alive as much as possible,” Cundle said. “Obviously it’s six points, but six points is a lot. But also in the same breath it’s not because within a week in the Championship we can pick it up and get there. So I think we will try and take it game by game really.
“Personally, like I said, I feel like my levels have dropped off a bit in the recent weeks, so I’ll probably just try and get back to those levels and try and score goals and help the team win games.”
