ALEX Neil said it was not “fair” to compare Millwall’s defensive record this season with last year’s.

The Lions were one of the best defensive sides in the Championship last year, keeping the most clean sheets (eighteen) and conceding the fewest away goals (24) and the fourth-fewest overall (49).

They have been less impressive this season, conceding 27 goals in fifteen games – the fifth-worst record in the division. They have also conceded eighteen away goals, the second-worst tally in the Championship.

Jake Cooper and Caleb Taylor have started all fifteen games at centre-back, while Zak Sturge has started all fifteen at left-back. Tristan Crama is the only member of last season’s dominant back four not to feature regularly, with the Frenchman starting just three games after suffering two ankle injuries. Millwall have also used three different goalkeepers after both Lukas Jensen and Filip Marschall picked up injuries.

Neil was asked about the difference in the defensive record.

“What I will say, though, is that if you base it on last year, let’s take the last ten, fifteen games of the run-in, there’s a lot of the team that’s not the same,” Neil said. “So you can’t just look at a defence. You don’t just defend with your back four.

“Tristan Crama has played three games this year. We had Femi Azeez ahead of him. We had Josh Coburn fit for the second half of the season. We had Casper [De Norre] fit for most of the season. [Thierno] Ballo played, [Anthony] Patterson was in goal, Billy [Mitchell] was there. There were loads of different players.

“So you can’t just start going, ‘Oh, well, that defence was really good. Why is it not good anymore?’ There are loads of variables. There are loads of differences. So I don’t think that’s fair on them.”

Millwall’s underlying defensive statistics remain mid-table, with their 1.46 xG (expected goals) conceded per 90 minutes the thirteenth-best figure in the division, below their actual record of 1.8 goals conceded per game. Only 70.37 per cent of the goals they have conceded have come from inside the box, the third-lowest proportion in the division.

Many of the goals they have conceded in recent weeks have been noticeably soft.

When asked whether he felt the same mistakes were being made again and again, Neil said: “Yeah, I think that’s fair.”

Neil was then asked how he might go about rectifying that.

“There are a couple of different ways of going about it,” Neil said. “But I’m not going to share that with you.”