Millwall ‘did what they needed to’ – Alex Neil
Jake Cooper’s goal was enough for a 1-0 win over Cambridge in the Carabao Cup.
The Championship side progressed 1-0 thanks to defender Jake Cooper’s early goal.
“The lads did what they needed to do,” Neil said afterwards. “They played really well in spells and we defended really well in spells. For me it was a good all-round sort of performance.
“Can we play a bit more fluently? Of course we can. But I thought the other bits we needed to do, we did them well.
“It’s always nice to continue to win games. We’ve started the season really well. These games are never easy for anyone. We made 10 changes to the side and I think it’s important that we try to continue the momentum that we’ve started this season (with).”
Neil Harris, up against his former club, felt his Cambridge side had performed strongly after the blow of going behind early on.
“The first 10 minutes of the game, that was a real lesson for us,” Harris said. “A real lesson for the ground, for the players, for everybody to see levels.
“The next 80 minutes I thought was excellent. We grew into the game. I thought the players performed very well, I thought we were the better team for 80 minutes.
“In the first half, without overly creating too much, we got into really good areas but didn’t quite have either the belief or the cutting edge, maybe just the ability in the final third one v one against good players.
“The second half was much better.”