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Millwall Fans Verdict: Home Discomforts Return

How the Loyal Royals reacted to another home loss - this time it was Millwall who went home with all three points.

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With how other results have gone recently, Saturday was a real chance for us to take hold of our own future and put some really healthy breathing space between ourselves and the teams below. But it was a chance we didn’t take.

Fortunately, I was not at the game myself, but from the reaction during the game and after, it’s clear to see that it was another miserable afternoon and some of the key problems that led to the end result.

Conceding from a corner yet again, questionable tactical decisions (how on earth it took until the 85th minute before Paul Ince brought Yakou Meite on is the biggest mystery of our generation) and then the dodgy decision for Gilkesy to take the post-match media duties rather than Ince himself.

It was just another really poor afternoon and one that could be a crucial blow looking back at the end of the season, but hopefully not...

Set pieces

I saw a stat before the game on Saturday that said we’d conceded 19 goals from set pieces this season - the worst in the league. The second worst was 13. Now we can add one more to that damning tally.

We all know that Jake Cooper is a threat from set pieces. He’s about 8 foot for Christ’s sake. Three people went up with him for that header but he still got a firm enough contact to score.

It’s not about whether we’re man-marking or zonal, it’s about the basics of defending and attitude. The fans are not happy with our set-piece defensive records...

Questionable substitutions

You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to know that Yakou Meite should’ve been brought on a lot earlier than the 85th minute. It is truly baffling that it took as long for any sub to be made by Ince.

We had a host of attacking options on the bench, none more so than Meite who’s importance to this team shouldn’t have to be explained, and we were putting in a very blunt attacking performance. Surely common sense says a change needs to be made? Evidently not.

The fans were fuming with Ince’s decisions...

Paul Ince

Let’s be honest, Ince’s appointment came with its fair share of question marks. None of those question marks have vanished yet. In fact, I’d say that even more have appeared.

There are so many things which just make me feel so uncomfortable about his appointment. Reading signing his son the month before, Paul Ince himself reportedly being a client of Kia Joorabchian, and hiring him on an ‘interim’ basis but with no apparent search for a permanent manager going on behind the scenes. Sending Gilkes to do the presser to does not sit well with me at all.

If we keep seeing performances like we have in the last couple of games too, the fans will lose patience with him. It seems like they already are...

Conclusion

Another miserable afternoon. Luckily, results again mostly went our way again with Peterborough United losing and Derby County beating Barnsley, but we simply cannot keep relying on other teams to help us out.

We have to take control of our own future, and losing in the way we did on Saturday certainly isn’t doing that. Something has to change, but we have a pretty tough run of fixtures coming up now.