JOE Edwards has revealed that one of his substitutions against Hull City was pre-planned as Millwall look to handle the “awkward” fitness issues of their strikers.
Michael Obafemi made his first start for the Lions but was replaced by Tom Bradshaw at half-time in a switch that Millwall had planned to make beforehand.
Obafemi is low on minutes having not played much football for parent club Burnley before arriving on loan at The Den last month.
While Bradshaw is battling back from a hamstring issue that he picked up in training.
On top of all of this, the striker who started Millwall’s previous game against Preston North End, Kevin Nisbet, was ruled out of the Hull clash with injury.
Asked about his strikers after the 1-0 defeat, Edwards said: “If you look at today, for example, the centre-forward situation. It was pre-planned that Michael and Tom would play half a game each. Because they’re both in that awkward position where Michael’s played very little football for a very long time, Tom’s just come back from an injury, and they were both in that awkward position where they’re both capable of more than 15-20 minutes at the end so I want to keep building them.
“But neither are ready to push past that today. They weren’t ready to push past that mark where they’re getting to fatigue state where re-injury might come.
“So we made the decision beforehand where the best decision would be to utilise a half each. And to be fair to Michael, that’s the first game of football he’s started in a long time. So it’s a massive positive for us to get him starting a game and get that bulk of minutes under his belt. And as far as I’m aware, he’s come through it fine.
“Was he at his sharpest and best? No. And I wouldn’t expect that with the run-in he’s had of the last few months. But he’ll better for it. Add to that – in his defence, did we use him as well as we could have? No, we didn’t. We didn’t really look to the front well at all in the first half.
“But then when Tom came on, he shows what threat he could have. So whether it’s Michael starting and Tom off the bench or vice versa, and we keep building our idea as a team of how we use them, it’s definitely positive signs to build on.”