MILLWALL boss Neil Harris praised striker Mihailo Ivanovic’s composure in front of goal after he scored his first goal for the club against Derby County on Saturday.
Ivanovic, nineteen, joined the Lions in the summer transfer window for a club record fee of around £2.5 million, but had a tricky start to his time in south-east London.
He was diagnosed with a metatarsal injury shortly after his arrival, and was called up to the Serbian national team in both the September and October international breaks, leaving him little time to train with Millwall.
Injuries to forwards Josh Coburn and Tom Bradshaw accelerated the club’s plans for the young striker, and on Saturday he showed exactly why they invested so much money in him.
“We’re very limited in our options at the moment, especially at the top end of the pitch and Macaulay [Langstaff] has done extremely well in recent games,” Harris said.
“Mika is nineteen and moved abroad and ultimately, he’s hardly trained with us because we had two international breaks and he was recovering from an injury in between. We’ve hardly seen Mika on the training pitch.
“He’s not had a lot of time to get up to speed with how we want him to play, but the goal will do him a world of good and obviously certainly comes into thinking for Wednesday night.
“I was delighted when he took around the goalkeeper because then it becomes an empty net.
“It’s a hefty price tag that follows him, obviously. But he’s a very young man and it’s important for me to see him. It’s lovely for us all to see him out on the pitch, but it’s important for me to learn more about him and what he showed today was composure in the penalty area.”
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