Ryan Leonard on returning to former club Southend United on Wednesday – and missing Millwall’s pre-season training camp in Portugal
BY JAKE SANDERS
Millwall manager Neil Harris and Ryan Leonard return to Southend tomorrow – and the midfielder says he was ‘buzzing’ when he found out about their meeting.
The Lions travel to Roots Hall for their penultimate pre-season fixture, a place where Leonard enjoyed seven successful seasons between 2011 and 2018.
He won promotion to League One with the Shrimpers in 2015, whilst also being voted as the club’s Player of the Year on three separate occasions.
Harris watched games from the stands there as a boy with his dad and hung up his boots in 2013 after enjoying a two-year, 52-game 10-goal spell there.
Both will be expecting a gritty encounter against the League One side to follow up their similarly robust friendly with local rivals Gillingham on Sunday.
With a beaming smile on his face, Leonard said: “I am looking forward to it. When I saw the fixtures come out I was buzzing. It will be nice to go back there, I have still got a lot of friends at the club and in behind the scenes of the club, so it will be nice to go back and see few familiar faces and hopefully get some more minutes under my belt, which I need.”
Leonard returned to the Millwall squad for that victory at Priestfield after missing their pre-season training camp in Portugal last week due to the birth of his child, meaning he was left behind at Calmont Road to train with the Under-23s.
But it certainly wasn’t a wasted week according to the midfielder, who turned out for a Millwall XI in a 2-0 win over National League South side Eastbourne Borough last Tuesday to maintain his fitness levels.
“It was brilliant to be fair, Nuge {Kevin Nugent], the coaches looked after me really well,” Leonard said. “He has obviously got me into training and got me into games with the young lads. It has been enjoyable, obviously it is not ideal, I wanted to travel, but for personal reasons I had to stay which is out of my hands, but it was brilliant to train with the young lads and to help them and obviously they helped me get some fitness.”
The 27-year-old felt that the intensity and rivalry of the game at Gills last time out was exactly what the squad needed at this stage of their pre-season programme.
He said: “It was a very competitive game, it didn’t feel like a friendly out there at times. I think that is what we needed. We have had a few friendlies building up to this and this was more of a competitive game, it felt like more like a cup game. It was more realistic and was enough to win the game, it’s a nice habit to get in to.”
PICTURES BY BRIAN TONKS
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