JED Wallace is confident Connor Mahoney can be a key Millwall attacker this season despite his struggles in the last campaign.
Mahoney, 23, arrived at the Lions with high expectations following a £1million move from Bournemouth last summer and while he started positively he quickly lost his regular starting place in the team.
Former Millwall boss Neil Harris was also critical of Mahoney after one game, and successor Gary Rowett seemed not to be fully convinced, as the winger started just five league games since October, only finishing one, the 4-1 win over Huddersfield on the final day.
Wallace accepts that Mahoney is not going to thunder into challenges, but believes the attacker can make up for that by being a game-changer in the final third.
“I’ve always had a lot of belief in Connor because there are very few players who can do what he can do,” Wallace said. “He can go both ways, he’s got brilliant balance.
“I think people sometimes forget that it’s often not the case in football that you just walk into a club and get on with things. A lot of the time you move area, it takes time to settle in.
“People forget that Connor has only played 30 or 40 games [for Millwall]. It was a big ask for him to come in last season and hit the ground running and play 45 games.
“When you’ve grown up at Bournemouth and been in the environment there, it’s a very different environment to what it is at Millwall.
“People like Connor are what we need. Sometimes they might pull out of a tackle but on the flip-side of that they can also go past three players and put one in the bottom corner.
“We’re trying to move forward a little bit. You’ve see that with Woodsy [Ryan Woods]. He’s probably not a player that would have played for Millwall three years ago. Now with those sorts of players and the way football is nowadays, it’s about possession, we do need to improve on that front.
“If we can match that with the commitment that we have – you think of Hutchy [Shaun Hutchinson] and Muzza [Murray Wallace] that literally put their bodies on the line for anything – if you put that together with other players who have certain qualities, then I know what a good squad we’ve got.
“Especially towards the back end of the pitch where we look so solid. If we can get a few more goals from a few more players then hopefully we can really do something.”
Image: Millwall FC