JOE EDWARDS is determined to give Millwall fans something to get excited about in his bid to turn around the dreadful form at The Den.
The new head coach takes charge of his first home game on Saturday against Coventry City and trying to cure the Lions’ SE16 wobbles will be one of the main tasks on his agenda.
Millwall have lost three of their last four at The Den, have only two victories from nine games there this season and have the third-worst home record in the Championship.
Edwards said while he could not be sure what the issue was, he was keen to put a stop to it as soon as possible.
He told NewsAtDen: “I did a lot of analysis about the team and the style of play and structure. But in terms of digging deeper or understanding the feeling of what’s been going on at The Den, it’s hard to comment when you’re not a part of something. But what I do know is that every team in sport wants their home ground to be somewhere they can rely on for results and where they can put in dominant performances.
“Every team in sport will want to feel like that but certainly when you’re a team like Millwall with a fan base that we have and you’re able to create the feeling that we can create at The Den on a certain day with a certain type of performance, it has to be a target for us and we need to get back to that quickly.
“From Thursday onwards, it will start all becoming geared towards Saturday. And that won’t just be a mentality thing, it will linked to how we play as well.
“I’m well aware that what energy comes from the stands is a product of what’s going on on the pitch. We’ve got to give the fans something to get excited about and really get behind us with.”
The Lions boss was also asked if supporters could expect any formation changes with Millwall adopting various shapes across their 16 league matches so far.
He said: “I’ve played several different systems and at different times have had success and favoured different systems but it’s all based on players for me. I probably keep speaking about it a lot that I was fairly unknown to a lot of people in and around Millwall when I came into this job. So the fact that I then get the job, people heavily link it to the fact that we’re aiming for a very particular style of play.
“Having a clear idea as a coach and beliefs and principles is important. But I think the absolute art of coaching is getting the best out of what you’ve got. So they’ll be things from myself and Andy [Myers] that we’re trying to instil into the team quickly but, first and foremost, you have to look at the current group of players you’ve got, in relation to the level of competition they’re playing in, and [think] what is going to get the best out of him.
“And at the moment, with how we want to play and with who is fit and available, I just felt that 4-2-3-1 gets enough ball players and attacking players on the pitch and gets Zian [Flemming] in a position where he can be effective. That’s not to say we’ll be 4-2-3-1 for every game for the rest of this season. We’ll gauge it as we go.”