Millwall - Town Preview

By Aston
September 11 2004

Only Dennis Wise's Millwall side on Sunday stand between Ipswich Town and their best start to a league season since 1988.

Millwall Preview

Only Dennis Wise's Millwall side on Sunday stand between Ipswich Town and their best start to a league season since 1988.

Town look set to use the same starting 11 they did against Wolves and Rotherham over the bank holiday weekend with only one change on the squad, Scott Baron has been dropped and Matt Richards starts on the bench. Tommy Miller and Jason De Vos have declared them selves fit for tomorrows game.

Ipswich manager Joe Royle has said that: “The defence looked very solid against Wolves and Kelvin Davis hardly had a shot to save in the 90 minutes, Matt is fit now and we'll be in the squad but Fabian has taken his chance and the back four have looked a good unit.

“Like us, Millwall have had a decent start and we know it will be a big challenge, they proved what a resilient side they are in last season's FA Cup Final where they made things difficult for Manchester United so we have to be patient but our home form is good and we go into the game confident.

“Our performances at Portman Road will be the cornerstone of a promotion campaign.”.

Millwall player/manager Denis Wise may well be able to call upon the services of Kevin Muscat who has missed the last 5 months because of injury and Barry Hayles who joined from Sheffield United is inline for his debut.

Wise: “We've got a busy time ahead of us so although we've had a bit of a break from our last game, it's been useful as we gave the lads a couple of days off.

“They needed a rest and hopefully they'll be fit and raring to go for the next few games we've got coming up.

“Ipswich is the first of them, and like a lot of the teams we've played recently such as Leicester, Wigan, Reading, they are going to be up there challenging for the top places at the end of the season.

“We've had some decent results against sides we consider our rivals, so we'll be looking forward to this game.

“We work on defending quite a bit and not conceding a goal is something the back four and midfield players take a lot of pride in.

“We've kept a lot of clean sheets; we've looked solid and have not given away too many goals and that's the way you have to go about it.

“If you have the back four and the midfield strong and not concede goals then you've always got a chance of scoring.”.

If Wigan and Stoke fail to win their games today Town could go top with either a win or a draw tomorrow.

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