Millwall welcome South-London neighbours Charlton Athletic to The Den this Saturday, in search of their first back-to-back League home wins since beating Preston North End and Sheffield Wednesday in August.
The Lions go into this Saturday’s derby 17th in the Sky Bet Championship whilst Charlton sit in 10th, just four points ahead of their hosts this weekend.
Last Time Out
Both sides will be looking to get back to winning ways this Saturday after both suffering narrow defeats last weekend.
The Lions lost 2-1 away at Reading in Gary Rowett’s first away game in charge whilst Charlton lost 1-0 at home to Preston who moved up to second in the table.
Both sides have endured a mixed start to the season, but it’s the Addicks who will come into this game in the better position.
Previous Meetings
Charlton haven’t beaten Millwall since the 1995/96 campaign when both teams were in the first division. The Addicks won 2-0 both at home and away with their current Manager Lee Bowyer playing a starring role.
“Maybe I’m a good omen because we played them twice that season [1995/96] and beat them twice,” said Bowyer. “So, hopefully, I’m that good omen. I’ve been away from the club since and now I’m back, hopefully we can get the same result again and then maybe our fans can walk around with the bragging rights for 20-odd years.”
The Lions have since picked up five wins in the following nine meetings since then, including a 4-0 demolition of their South-London neighbours back in 2010.
In 74 previous meetings, Millwall have been victorious 35 times compared to Charlton’s 12 with the pair playing out 27 draws between them, including a dramatic 4-4 encounter at The Valley in 2009.
Addicks Away Form
The Addicks will take some form of optimism going into this Saturday’s game having picked up some strong results away from home so far this season. However, they haven’t won on the road since beating Reading 2-0 in late-August.
In their seven away league games so far, Charlton have picked up nine points out of a possible 21 with two wins and three draws. A late penalty at the Hawthorns saw Charlton pick up a valuable point at West Bromwich Albion in their last away game.
Lions up for the Fight
With The Den officially sold out for Saturday’s game, you can guarantee it will be a hostile atmosphere in South-Bermondsey, but Lions boss Rowett admits “there’s no extra pressure” on his side to win when Charlton visit Millwall Saturday afternoon.
“I don’t think there’s [extra] pressure, every game in the Championship there’s pressure. We want to win every home game whether it’s Charlton or anyone else. I know it has an extra significance for the fans and we’ll turn up and try to play with a better overall performance than we did [Saturday] and certainly match what we did last week.”
Molumby and Bialkowski Buoyant
Millwall midfielder Jayson Molumby told South-London press: “Every big game, we have answered at home this season. We will go into it full of confidence. You know our home form speaks for itself, so we will go into that all guns blazing.”
Lions goalkeeper Bartosz Bialkowski said: “We have proved at home this year that if we do everything right then we are unplayable at times and we can beat anyone so it’s another good test for us. We just need to do everything we need to do from the first whistle.”
