Norwegian Blues

Last updated : 19 July 2005 By Neil Andrews

Steve Claridge
Claridge: Happy with performance
A very youthful Millwall side lost 3-0 to Lyn Oslo last night in a hastily arranged pre-season friendly.

Manager Steve Claridge decided not to subject too many first team squad members to the rigours of travelling to Norway ahead of tonight's game against Southend United but the line-up did include the manager himself along with striker John Sutton and midfielder Curtis Weston.

Speaking to the club's official site, Claridge seemed happy with the side's performance, despite the result.

"This was a really good work-out against a team currently second in the table.

We had a young bunch of players out there and this game was pretty much what we imagined, maybe a little tougher.

Some of the lads met at about 2am today in order to fly out here early this morning, so taking that into account and the fact that we let in two goals during the the first six minutes, the boys settled down well after about 20 minutes and looked much more solid.

Some of them were tired, there's no doubt about that, but Oslo didn't score their third goal until right near the end, and we also played the final half an hour with 10 men after Curtis Weston was sent off."

Claridge also looked at the positives of seeing what many consider to be fringe players at first hand.

"The most important thing is that I have now had an opportunity to see some more players in action. As with Crawley on Saturday, there were four or five who really did themselves a power of good with how they performed.

"I want to evaluate the squad as quickly as I can and get a picture by the end of the week as to who is going to reach my standard and who isn't.

"Some very valuable questions have been answered this evening. It has been an extremely worthwhile exercise."

Millwall: Cronin, Bostwick, Pooley, Craig, Zambernardi, Quigley, Hendry, Weston, Braniff, Sutton, Claridge.
Subs: Macleod, Masterson, Rose, T.Robinson, Cogan.