DEREK Mazou-Sacko missed Millwall’s FA Cup defeat at Burnley owing to a swollen ankle.
Mazou-Sacko, 21, was scheduled to start the match but was ruled out on the morning of the game. The Lions lost the third-round match 5-1.
The French midfielder had previously missed six weeks due to an unrelated ACL strain, but returned in Millwall’s final league match, a 2-1 victory against Swansea City last Sunday.
Neil explained why Mazou-Sacko was unavailable.
“Derek was scheduled to play, and I’m frustrated he didn’t play because I think the bite that we would have required in the middle he would have had, which we needed in the first half,” Neil told me.
“We had our training session yesterday. He was set to play. He and Zak [Sturge] had a brief reconciliation. I was more concerned about Zak than I was with Derek. It did not present anything following training. He completed the rest of the session and was fine.
“We then boarded the train because if someone was struggling, I would not have brought them with us. He got on the train, came up here, and really struggled to get off. His ankle swelled between getting on the train and getting up here, thus the injury was to a whole different region of his body. Between last night and this morning, he wasn’t available or fit to play.
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