Millwall 1-1 Bolton Wanderers: Immediate Reaction

Wanderers picked up their first point of the new football season thanks to a Filipe Morais equaliser. The beautiful free kick was the kind we have come to expect from the postman and made sure Millwall’s earlier goal scored by George Saville was cancelled out.

The line up saw 3 changes to the team that lost 2-3 against Leeds a week earlier. Reece Burke came in for the injured David Wheater, Mark Little came in for Stephen Darby and Darren Pratley came in for the injured Josh Vela. It appears with the exception of Mark Little, none of the team that chalked up a win against Crewe did enough to get in to the starting 11. Once again, we line up 3-5-2.

The match start was fairly dull. Millwall were easily coping with Wanderers tactic of knocking it to Gary Madine; the big man only winning 2 aerial duels in that opening sequence. With our attacking threat all but neautrialised it was Millwall doing all the attacking. Despite this Wanderers defended well with Burke getting an early yellow. The half finished 0-0.

No changes after the half time break and Millwall continued to attack. The inevtible happened and Millwall went up 1-0. Wanderers responded but it was clear it was going to need a change to get back in to the game. Enter Filipe Morais who instantly makes an impact. Morais scored a sumptuous free kick to make it 1-1. Wanderers had to clear off the line twice more in the match but it ultimately finished 1-1.

It was important we didn’t start with 2 losses, especially when our upcoming fixtures are looked at. Given the injuries we have, I don’t think a draw is that bad.

What does need addressing though is the formation. A lot of people seem to remeber it working well for us last year seeing as we got promoted playing it. Yet it isn’t remembered that we had 2 long miserly runs with that formation and never reached the heights of 4231. Whilst it would be better to have Sammy Ameobi for this formation; Will Buckley, Filipe Morais and Adam Armstrong could all do a job on the wings. Needs doing asap as we can’t afford to just wish teams wont cut off Madine as Millwall did today and allow us to play our game.

On to the next one. COYWM