MILLWALL need to produce the type of performance against Ipswich Town that can get The Den rocking tonight, head coach Joe Edwards believes.
It’s the Lions’ first home game under the lights since their invigorating 1-0 win over Norwich City just after the Christmas when The Den reached fever pitch.
With Norwich’s rivals Ipswich in town – and Millwall looking for their first win since New Year’s Day – Edwards is hopeful his players can get the crowd going again.
He told NewsAtDen: “Norwich were coming as a really strong opponent who we knew had the ability to dominate the game in terms of possession and cause us a lot of problems. Ipswich are a similar opponent in that respect so the game could have a similar look and feel to it.
“But more importantly the atmosphere in the stadium that night and how together we were, the team and the fans, and how we had a real intensity to us, if we can get near generating the performance that creates that in the stadium and it’s anything like that night, then that would be fantastic.”
Ipswich have won only one of their last nine games in the league and were tossed out of the FA Cup by sixth-tier Maidstone United at the end of the last month.
But Edwards believes the numbers show that Kieran McKenna’s side, who are fourth in the Championship, remain a formidable opponent.
Asked if this was a good time to play Ipswich, the Lions head coach said: “No, definitely not. And that’s not me putting a negative spin on it, I think it’s just the same as any time you play them.
“You talk about runs and streaks in football but they’re always there to come to an end. I think it’s one win in nine games for Ipswich so while some people say ‘good time to play them’ the obvious fact about that stat is that at some time it’s going to change because they’re an extremely good team.
“If you look at goals conceded in the league, we’ve conceded the same amount of goals as Ipswich. The big separator between us and them is how many goals they’ve scored. And if you look at the recent spell of how few games they’ve won recently, you drill into a lot of the data and they’ve still been creating a huge amount of chances and shots at goal. So they’re still playing in a similar style and being equally threatening but they’ve been on the end of a few moments lately, like we have, where the ball hasn’t been falling for them like it was before and fine margins have decided results.
“For me they’re still as dangerous as they have been all throughout the season and if anything the fact they’ve dropped a couple of places in the league for the first time in a long time [means] they will have real determination to get back to where they were. So we have to be ready for that.”