Leeds’ academy was Charlie Cresswell’s education, Millwall might be his graduation - The Athletic 20/9/22

By Phil Hay

With his 20th birthday on the horizon, Charlie Cresswell flew the nest. Home, which had always been his parents’ house in Yorkshire, became a flat in an apartment block in London’s Canary Wharf district.

The grass of Leeds United where he grew roots for many years became the grit and gravel of Millwall, a club who pride themselves on driving players out of their comfort zone.

“The London life,” Cresswell jokes, standing by the tunnel at The Den with the towers of Canary Wharf in the distance behind him. “I’m more used to sheep and fields around me so London’s a bit mad compared to that. But I’m loving it here, really I am.”

Leeds could tell him everything about Millwall because they know Millwall inside out, not least the way in which Bermondsey’s finest perfected the art of beating them in this corner of the capital.

The Den, as a former Leeds player once put it, is a ground where the more you try to hide, the more the crowd come looking for you. Cresswell had other offers in the summer, other teams asking to sign him on loan, but Millwall looked ideal. There are places where a loanee can tot up minutes in peace. Bermondsey is not one of them.

If Cresswell’s choice of move felt good to him, it felt good to Leeds and good for his professional growth, too. Sending him out was no clearing of the decks and no indication at all that the defender had run his course at Elland Road.

He is, for example, no Jamie Shackleton, another Leeds player who joined Millwall on loan in July and is holed up in the same block of apartments as Cresswell, appearing alongside him in Saturday’s 2-1 win over Blackpool. Shackleton is 22, has had his chance at Leeds and knows that he and the club are almost done. Millwall have an option to buy him when his loan expires.

Cresswell is different. Leeds see him as the future at centre-back, provided his development goes to plan, and decided over the summer that a year in the Championship would harden him nicely, if not complete his apprenticeship for the Premier League.

Unlike Shackleton, Millwall were offered no chance to sign Cresswell permanently and while Leeds did not demand a loan fee before sending him south, the deal with Gary Rowett’s team will impose penalty clauses if he fails to play as much as Leeds want. There is also a provision for his parent club to recall him in January, though that safety net is for emergencies. The whole point of the transfer was that he stayed at The Den and played.

Football elsewhere suited him because for all that Cresswell made his Premier League debut under Marcelo Bielsa last season, those 90 minutes made up a total of 139 across the campaign.

Millwall, naturally, have pushed him harder: eight starts, greater exposure in a typically wide-open division and the pressure of trying to give them a sniff of the play-offs.

Leeds’ academy was his education. Nine months in London might be his graduation. “I’d class myself as a first-team player when I’ve played about 50 games,” Cresswell told The Athletic in April and a first transfer out of Elland Road should take him close to that number.

The England Under-21 international is a good mix of brains and brawn; robust enough to tangle with centre-forwards in time-honoured tradition but good enough with his feet to back himself in a side who want to pass out from deep.

Bielsa brought ball-playing qualities out of the squad he managed at Elland Road, ordering central defenders to spread possession around as religiously as the midfielders in front of them, but Cresswell has developed physically, too, bulking up with each passing pre-season.

In the Championship, a mix of grit and glide is useful, a competition where the variety in Blackpool’s squad alone swings from the towering height of Gary Madine to the nippy, productive feet of Jerry Yates.

Cresswell’s loan to this point has asked him to be pre-emptive and on the front foot. Going into the Blackpool game, he was placed among the top five centre-backs in the league who compete for aerial deliveries, fourth highest for winning true tackles (the combined calculation of tackles made, fouls committed and challenges lost) and fifth highest for true interceptions (a combination of interceptions and blocked passes). The core requirements of his position have been tested from the start.

There have been difficult moments, too, like the misplaced backpass which cost Millwall in a 2-0 defeat to Sheffield United, but a strong attacking output has written more positive headlines: two goals on his debut against Stoke City, another against Cardiff City and an assist for good measure.

Millwall’s manager, Rowett, started the season with Cresswell in his line-up but then dropped him after a month, making room for club captain Shaun Hutchinson. A groin injury suffered by Hutchinson has since opened the door again.

Rowett is using a back three in which Cresswell plays on the right. Wing-backs either side of a midfield two are there to provide cover and double up but can leave the defenders behind them exposed when they stray beyond halfway. It was Shackleton who filled the right flank on Saturday, in the role where Bielsa tried to make him fit at Leeds. Blackpool sought to match Millwall up, going 3-4-3 and positioning Dominic Thompson to run at Cresswell’s zone of the pitch.

Out of possession, Cresswell regularly positioned himself as the deepest of the centre-backs, the last man with responsibility for Blackpool’s direct hits over the top.

Opportunities to carry the ball forward were few but he did when he could against a Blackpool side with limited lead in their pencil. A corner came Millwall’s way in the 14th minute and Cresswell, who had scored from a set piece more than once this season, trotted straight up for it. He was in the melee as a header from Zian Flemming bounced in off goalkeeper Daniel Grimshaw for an own goal.

Yates kept Cresswell busy by trying to drift off him and spin him, using clever bursts to stretch the play. Cresswell was alive to most of his movement and landed one big hit early in the second half, crunching Yates on halfway.

All it took, though, was a Blackpool equaliser to show that discontent with Rowett is bubbling beneath the surface at The Den. The visitors got in behind Shackleton, Cresswell’s sliding challenge failed to block Thompson’s pass and Charlie Patino rifled a finish into the net. Millwall in that guise looked less certain of sniffing the play-offs than catching a smell of the other end of the table. Half-time brought boos and plenty of them.

In a sense, Cresswell can expect to evolve however it goes in London, required to cope whether the atmosphere is fair or foul. The state of play at Millwall is such that with 10 games gone, Cresswell is tied with own goals as the club’s top scorer.

Rowett’s system, with a high back line, gives little margin for error to a defensive unit with no extreme pace. As such, Millwall have had leaky moments and conceded 14 times. But these can be valuable first steps for a loanee, the steps that require nerve and maturity in the absence of everything going swimmingly.

Millwall, nonetheless, pulled themselves together and Benik Afobe sealed a 2-1 win by smashing home a strike on 63 minutes. Cresswell moved into no-nonsense mode from then on, giving away nothing and intervening with an important interception and an even more necessary tackle on CJ Hamilton inside the box. A quality display of the basics came from him when it mattered and boos turned to applause at full-time as Millwall edged up to 13th place, two points off sixth.

Afterwards, Cresswell says he has been happy with all but two of his performances. The mix of highs and lows in a short period of time are teaching him to manage them and to control his reaction to them. “The first game I scored two goals so I’m really high,” he says. “Then the next week I make a mistake against Sheffield United and it feels like the lowest low. I need to get level-headed because if I’m up too high or down too low, I’ll never be at that bar where you can live your life and enjoy it. I want to enjoy life as well as enjoy my football.

“I feel happy with how I’ve played. There were two games where I thought I should have done better but as a young player coming out on loan, I know I’ll make mistakes and I know I’ll come up against players who teach you something different. That’s what I need. And here (at Millwall) there’s no hiding. I wouldn’t hide anyway, I like to step into a game, but you know how it’s going to be. It’s part of why I wanted to come — to show balls and step up to the plate.”

Next Sunday will mark a year since Bielsa let Cresswell loose in the Premier League for the first time, against West Ham United at Elland Road. It was a valuable experience but, in the grand scheme, will do less for him than a full season at the coal face.

“Last year, I played about six times,” he says. “What you’re trying to make sure is that you take your chance on that one occasion or the individual occasions. With this loan, you need to take your chance every single week. You need to prep your mind, your body, everything. You always have to be ready.”

When it came to discussing Cresswell’s future over the summer, all parties agreed that he was ready to head out of Leeds. All parties agreed that he would be back, too, for a fresh assessment next summer. He will let Millwall squeeze every drop from him. Then he will head home to the sheep and the fields, hoping to be stronger, brighter and better.