City’s Canadian winger is relaxed about the ongoing situation developing at St Mary’s
Liam Millar is focusing on Saturday’s play-off final at Wembley(Image: Alfie Cosgrove/News Images/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Liam Millar says the ongoing cloud surrounding Saturday’s Championship play-off final at Wembley is having little impact on preparations at Hull City.
City are preparing to tackle Southampton at Wembley, but the South Coast club are currently awaiting the outcome of the ongoing disciplinary proceedings relating to their spying charge.
It’s expected that a decision relating to their potential punishment will be made public on Wednesday, with the game being postponed a genuine possibility.
Despite the uncertainty, City’s focus remains laser-like on the 4:30pm kick-off under the Wembley arch, in front of almost 40,000 City supporters.
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“I don’t think anything out of your control in life is worth stressing over, in my opinion. I feel like there’s no reason for us to stress about what’s going to happen that we cannot control,” Millar told Hull Live.
“All we know at this moment is that the game is on Saturday against Southampton, so that’s all we can prepare for. That’s all we can do is we can all mentally prepare for that game on Saturday.
“And if something was to change, then of course we have to adapt, and we’d be able to deal with whatever is to change, but at this moment, the game is Saturday, 4:30 against Southampton, so that’s what we’ll be doing, preparing for that as best as we can.”
Millar has praised the way in which Sergej Jakirovic has kept things calm since the win at Millwall last Monday night, and he believes the two wins over Southampton in the regular season will help come kick-off.
The Canadian has also revealed how Jakirovic’s plan in the build-up is to try and keep everything as normal as possible, even down to wearing the same pre-match tracksuits they would for a league game.
“The gaffer’s been great,” Millar continued. “He’s very chilled, relaxed, like you know he is, and I think that just helps us so much, knowing that he has those calm nerves about him. It just oozes the rest of us to be calm about it and just take it like any other game, and we’ve been preparing like it’s any other game.
“We’re going to wear a tracksuit like it’s any other game, not like it’s a big occasion. The fact that we’re just taking it as any other game gives us all confidence that it’s just, like I said, just another game.
“That’s the best way of going about it, just treat it as another game. The only thing that’s different is that you’re playing at Wembley and you’re playing in front of more people, but at the end of the day, it’s football, you’re playing 90 minutes, we played Southampton twice already this season.
“We know what they’re about, and just take it as any other game, just take it like we’re going to St Mary’s and playing them there, that’s all you gotta take it as.
“It gives us an advantage that we know how to beat them. They’re obviously a very different team from what they were in January when we played them. They’re still the same players, the exact same players that were there when we beat them. We’re just gonna go into the game, as I said, like any other game, prepare like we’re playing them again, and we just do it like that.”
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