GARY Rowett has said that his Millwall side don’t prepare for away games any differently compared to home matches.
The Lions boast an incredibly strong record at The Den but have won just once on the road so far this season. However, they are the in-form team in the Championship heading into Saturday’s match against Huddersfield Town, who sit at the very bottom of the division.
While some managers do adopt different tactical and psychological approaches before away matches, Rowett believes that sticking to the same formula is the best way of maintaining this consistency.
“I think the consideration and the work that we’ve done over the last period has been to not change, to focus on what we need to do in every game,” he told NewsAtDen.
“I think every manager will say the same and the players need to have that appetite to run, work and stay compact together, which takes a lot of hard yards, a lot of energy and a lot of determination.
“Most away games bring the same sort of challenges. You have to defend well and not allow the opposition to build that momentum that we get so often at The Den and build that pressure. That includes keeping possession of the ball when you get the opportunity to take the sting out of the game.
“It doesn’t really change anything. It’s not arrogant at all, but we believe that if we do what we do well then we’ll give any team a problem, home or away. But we’re also mindful that we’ve won one away game all season so we’ve got to continue to improve that, we’ve got to keep working hard to improve that.
“One result doesn’t give you the right to then go and continue to win games, it gives you the benchmark of what you need to do to win the games. What you then need to do is go and do it.
“I was at a club once where the owner wanted us to wear headphones with crowd noise while we were training, I’m not sure that was ever going to work!
“Everyone has different ideas on how to prepare. We spent a long time in Covid working out what we need to do in no crowd noise, it worked out that everything gave a tiny percentage but none of it was the same.
“You can’t beat work rate, you can’t beat togetherness, you can’t beat all of those things. If you can get that, it gives you a chance of winning. It’s down to your quality on the day and how you deal with certain moments in the game.
“It doesn’t really change if you’re away from home or at home, all that changes is that it’s not your fans there, it’s the opposition’s fans there. That gives them a slight advantages.”
Photo: Millwall FC