Millwall skipper on higher expectations: ‘We go into games with freedom – but can we achieve something?’
By Will Scott
MILLWALL CAPTAIN Jake Cooper is embracing the higher expectations around the side and believes the club is “a great spot” – but he insisted the Lions are blocking out all talk of what could happen in May.
The Lions are fourth in the table with seven games to go and are well-placed to make the second-tier play-offs for the first time in 24 years.
Alex Neil’s side could even go one better. They are just two points off the top two and take on second-placed Middlesbrough in their first game after the international break.
With Ipswich, who Millwall are level on points with after a 1-1 draw before the last break of the campaign, not playing until Easter Monday, a win at the Riverside Stadium would move the Lions into the automatic promotion places.
“If you’d said that we’d be level on points with Ipswich at the end of March, I think any person related to Millwall would have bitten your hand off,” Cooper told our paper. “We’re in a great spot. We’re just trying to enjoy where we’re at.
“That underdog mentality is something that this football club really thrives on anyway, from a fanbase, a player and staff perspective. We can just go into every game now with that freedom that we’ve had a good season – but can we try and achieve something?”
Millwall may be in the hunt for automatic promotion, but there are sides lurking below who are still within striking distance of them. Sixth-placed Southampton and seventh-placed Wrexham are six points off the Lions, while Hull City are three points behind in fifth.
Cooper has confidence in a squad that is the strongest the club have built since Mark McGhee’s side fell at the play-off semi-final hurdle over two decades ago.
“We’ve got really ambitious players, and we added people like Tommy Watson and Anthony Patterson who’ve been through it before, and Barry [Bannan] has got so much experience,” Cooper said. “He’s been in the play-offs before and in the Premier League. It’s not like we feel like we’re inexperienced in these situations.
“It’s just about keeping that same mentality that the gaffer gives us about going into every game to try and win and not focusing on games in advance or the end of the season yet or anything like that. It’s just taking each step at a time.
“My role is saying that to the lads. Whenever anyone speaks about what could happen come May, then it’s just brushing that to the side and focusing on what we’re doing right now.”
Winning games raises expectations, and Neil has often said his players can sense it.
“I felt it in the summer, with obviously how well Alex did with us towards the end of the season, and the chairman, the way he spent his money and the sales we made and then the reinvestments that he made, especially last January,” Cooper said. “It’s just been gradual, so I don’t think it was an overnight thing.
“The players and the staff, we feel like we’ve got a good team and a good set-up, and we feel like we can win every game. It doesn’t feel like it’s an expectation that is above our reach.”
Compared to previous top-six challenges, Millwall have been in and around the play-off places since October, and the mantra under Neil has been to approach every game looking for the three points, regardless of the opponent.
“Confidence is high because we’ve won a lot of games this season,” Cooper said. “We fully go out there looking to win, and the manager sets us up in that way, and speaks in that way.
“That is everybody’s mentality. I know the Burnley game didn’t go well [on the final day of last season], but even when we go to top sides, like when we went to Crystal Palace [in the EFL Cup], the ambition is to go and try and win those games. That’s been our mindset over the past fourteen, fifteen months that we’ve had the manager.”
