MILLWALL have been working on a more controlled style of play during pre-season, Jed Wallace has revealed.
Wallace believes the Lions can learn from Fulham and Brentford, two possession-focused sides that contested the 2020 Championship play-off final.
Fulham registered an Opta record of 934 successful passes and 84.5 per cent possession when they defeated Millwall 4-0 at Craven Cottage last August.
Brentford had 68 per cent possession when they came from two goals down with six minutes left to beat their London rivals 3-2 at Griffin Park in October.
But the Lions were much stronger at home against the London sides, defeating the Bees 1-0 and drawing 1-1 against the Cottagers.
The latter result was one of 17 draws in the league for Millwall, joint-most with promoted West Brom.
Wallace identified the second and third matches back after football’s restart in June – the 0-0 draw at Barnsley and a 1-1 stalemate against Swansea at The Den – as having key moments that could have given the Lions an extra four points if they had gone their way – which would have been enough to finish sixth.
Millwall fans are set to be able to return home from October 1, albeit at a reduced 5,994 capacity in Bermondsey. The last time Lions supporters were at The Den was on February 29 for the 1-1 draw against Bristol City.
“We’re looking forward to getting the fans back,” Wallace said. “Any player in this league will say if they could pick one game with no fans it would be Millwall away.
“On the flip side of that, since lockdown we performed quite well, maybe one too many draws. You look back at the Barnsley one, the Swansea one, Fergie [Shane Ferguson] has a free-kick and it hits the bar and then the goalie on the bum and stays out. Swansea do the same thing and it hits Bart [Bialkowski] and goes in.
“Ultimately at this level with teams like ourselves, Preston, Blackburn, Bristol City that are trying to get into those last two play-off spots – it’s very close between us – those two moments are a four-point swing. That’s probably why we fell short, those moments not going our way.”
Wallace watched the play-offs when Brentford and Fulham knocked out Swansea and Cardiff in the semi-finals before the Cottagers clinched their place in the Premier League by beating the Bees 2-1 at Wembley.
Wallace said: “Fulham and Brentford, I think stylistically we would have been a problem for them. But we can look at how much control they have with the football, how they dominate games. It’s something we can learn from and it’s something the manager is on at us all the time, trying to be more controlled.
“We’ve shown that at times but not enough, particularly in those home games against teams we should be beating. Sometimes we struggle to find that first goal and that little bit of momentum.
“But on the flip side of that, against the bigger teams in the league we’ve gone toe-to-toe with them and probably come out on top. So there are a lot of positives, it’s just those fine margins and finding different ways to score goals. We can score through counter-attacking and set-pieces, but sometimes it’s about building up play to score goals, and that’s something we’re working on a lot in pre-season.”
Image: Millwall FC