We felt fairly confident as we headed into the international fortnight, but it doesn`t take a genius to work out how three successive defeats can hurt a team. Saturday probably couldn`t have panned out worse, and now Bolton need to snap out of their badly-timed malaise at the earliest opportunity. Unfortunately, tomorrow`s visitors are a Millwall side that have grown into the Championship, to the point where they`re genuine playoff contenders. But yet again, that has often worked in our favour.
Vital Quotes:
“Millwall is a huge game now, Whatever system we play, whatever way we play – long ball, short ball, whatever, I am not bothered, I just want to see more resilience.”
A fired-up Phil Parkinson in the Bolton News.
Bolton Wanderers Team News:
Despite painkilling injections, Darren Pratley will still be missing tomorrow. I would once again expect changes, hopefully back to the 4-2-3-1 which serves us better.
Player to watch: Mark Beevers
The defender faces his former club tomorrow night – he`ll probably get some stick too after the heinous crime of leaving for wanting to be closer to home. Since we signed Beevers we`ve won twice and drawn the other game against Millwall.
Millwall Team News:
Byron Webster will miss this and the rest of the season with a knee injury, otherwise Millwall have no other injury concerns.
Player to watch: George Saville
The Northern Ireland international midfielder joined permanently last summer and scored his first goal in the reverse fixture against us. He has gone on to be an influential figure in the Lions` rise through the Championship, scoring 10 goals, more than any of our current players.
Match Facts & Stats
Bolton have a strong record at home to Millwall, having won 10 and drawn one of the last 11 games. We`ve also won the last three.
Last season`s victory at our place saw Josh Vela and Tom Thorpe bag the goals in a comfortable 2-0 win. Back in August we drew 1-1 at the Den, with Filipe Morais` free-kick the source of our equaliser.
Saturday saw our third defeat in a row, our worst run since our seven-game losing streak back in August/September.
Millwall`s 15 game unbeaten run is bettered in the top four English divisions than Fulham, undefeated in 19.
Failure to win could see Wanderers drop into the bottom three tomorrow night (Barnsley travel to Ipswich) – on a positive note, a win could see us move above Birmingham, and a maximum of five points clear.
Match Prediction:
We`ve a task on our hands tomorrow. Bolton 0-1 Millwall.
Next Fixtures:
Just the small matter of Barnsley away on Saturday before hosting Wolves a week later.