JOE Edwards insists he won’t “dwell” on Millwall’s second loss in five days as he analysed where his team fell short against Ipswich Town.
The Tractor Boys had it too easy in the first half last night and ran into a 3-0 lead by the 40th minute.
Millwall tightened up in the second half, Ipswich took their foot off the gas, and Kevin Nisbet was able to grab a consolation goal in the closing stages to make it 3-1.
The Lions boss said elements like basic mistakes and “general intensity” was what caught his eye more than the tactics.
He told NewsAtDen: “We were in today for a recovery. I made my feelings most clear at half-time last night. There was obviously an element of a response and improvement in the second half, albeit too late as we know.
“But I think it’s important that we don’t dwell on it now. We’ve got a game so soon after which gives us an opportunity to put it right. When we came in today, I did not feel the need to overanalyse too much video footage and stuff like that.
“For me there’s time when you can look back at games tactically and the structure of the team and moments to analyse to learn from, but last night so much of it was just about basics. And our general intensity and our general approach in those early parts of the game.
“I think we made it all clear last night. It’s time to move forward. And what we’ve got is yes a quick turnaround which is obviously tough for all the teams that are in that position of Wednesday night and then Saturday. A lot of tired bodies today but tomorrow we go again and with an opportunity to put it right on Saturday.”
Edwards insists the data suggests that it is not general work rate that has caused Millwall issues in the defeats to Coventry and Ipswich.
He said: “The thing is in terms of work ethic, if you look at the physical data that’s coming back after the games, the volume of work is definitely there. In terms of explosive work that the players are outputting eventually, it’s there. They’re working very hard. The problem last night was everything was a couple of seconds too late, a couple of yards off.
“That probably tells me something about mindset when we’re suffering in the early parts of games. We knew exactly how Ipswich would start, they’re in outstanding form at home and can cause a lot of problems around the goal.
“And when I say basics, the work ethic was there but we just too slow to react, we weren’t getting close enough and if you look at their goals, I think they went 3-0 up after having four shots, and when you look at all the goals they were scoring, we had enough players in and around the box to be defending. So it wasn’t like we were getting stretched or we weren’t set up for it, we had the players there to do the basics of defending the box.
“The work in total was there, it just wasn’t quick enough or close enough. It was more a case of quality as opposed to a lack of effort.”
Sunderland are Millwall’s next opponents on Saturday and Edwards has urged his side to show some of the spirit that they did in his first game in charge, the 4-0 win at Sheffield Wednesday.
He said: “First things first, we need to get the basics right. There’s been a lot of talk since I came in about style of play and the fact we want to play better football, use the ball more. And in the first two games, I think there were signs of that. We spoke about the Coventry game that we had a lot of the ball and our xG in the Coventry game was actually double what our average for the first 15 games of the season have been.
“There’s been some positive signs in terms of our use of the ball in the first two games that we need to get back to and try to keep building upon, and I’ve still got absolute belief in the messages that we came in with in those first few weeks. But, first and foremost, there are basic requirements that you need to earn your way into a football match.
“Exactly like we did at Hillsborough. At Hillsborough we rode out that first tough wave, we were competitive, we were blocking balls in our box, we were compact as a team and that enabled us to stay in the game and ultimately when we were the ones that got the first goal, we really built on that.
“But in the last two games we’ve given ourselves too much work to do by being sloppy in key moments in the early parts of the game.
“We need to dust ourselves off and be big about the fact that we’re in a tough moment and face it head on and just make sure we get the basics right and build from that.”