ZIAN FLEMMING admits the season has not panned out the way he wanted but remains determined to put things right.
The Dutchman was the centrepiece of a Millwall side that came within inches of reaching the Championship play-offs last season.
But the 25-year-old has struggled to reach that same level in this campaign in a team that has slipped down the table after one win from their last 12 games.
Flemming did not sugarcoat his frustration with the season so far and is hoping Millwall can get the rub of the green in the coming weeks.
He told NewsAtDen: “Obviously it’s a tough season so far, as you can tell by our position in the league. Things are not really going our way.
“We had a change with the manager and you can see where last year some things would fall our way, now it falls exactly the opposite way.
“I’m not satisfied with how my season is going. I’ve scored four goals now and I’d have wanted to score a lot more than that. So yeah maybe it goes hand-in-hand where if the team is struggling, it’s harder for yourself to excel.
“I want to score goals and make the difference. And the more I do that, the better we’re going to play as a team as well. Simply said, if I score we can win more games and I don’t score, someone else has to. And obviously someone else can do that as well but just looking at myself, I always want to do that a lot more than what I’ve done so far. So I’m not satisfied.
“It’s hard to really lay your finger on what the cause is. And if I tried to look at it from a helicopter view, it’s probably just a mix of everything. And some games last year, nothing really happened or there were no chances or it was difficult to impact but then there was just one little moment that I could score a goal in.
“And those moments, the goals out of nowhere, they don’t seem to fall for us or for me as much as last year.”
Flemming, who joined the club in June 2022 from Fortuna Sittard, is keen for the Lions to engineer a turnaround both so they can rise up the table and he can start loving his football again.
He said: “I only enjoy football when we win. It’s really hard to enjoy it when you’re losing as I hate losing. [The feeling] doesn’t stop right after the game. You might think ‘onto the next one’ and everyone tries to do the best they can but it’s never that easy.
“We really try our best to keep a positive atmosphere and we do do that but that doesn’t deny that it’s hard because you just don’t want to lose. And when you win it’s the best thing there is.”
Despite Millwall’s struggles this season, which sees them just two points above the relegation zone with almost half the season gone, Flemming does not believe the team are a million miles away from turning things around.
He said: “Maybe it sounds weird but in some of the games we haven’t been winning or been losing, I genuinely did not have the feeling that they were better than us. Most of the time I had the feeling that we were better than them or we definitely could be better than them.
“I’ve got 100 per cent belief that will turn around. And if you look at the last couple of weeks how unlucky maybe some moments have been as well.
“But also I don’t 100 per cent believe in luck. Luck is there and bad lack is there as well. The better you do as a player or a team you can increase the chances of your own luck and reduce the chances of bad luck. And I think that’s something we have to do.
“Penalty against Sunderland end of the game, penalty against Huddersfield, conceded a set-piece against Cardiff. That was not happening last year and now it happens and it’s hard to say why. The way Cardiff won that game is the way we would have won that game last year.
“A game that is stuck and not moving and then we would score a goal out of nothing or from a set-piece to get the three points and go home. And now it’s just falls the other side which is really hard to define why but we just have to deal with it.”
Flemming is the only Millwall player to have appeared in every game this season and has taken part in all of the club’s last 64 league games while many of his teammates have dealt with persistent injuries.
Asked about the secret to his fitness, the midfielder said: “I don’t want to jinx it but simply said but I just take really good care of my body.
“The work off the pitch in the gym helps with injury prevention, I’ll make sure I’m doing treatments before I’m having pain in terms of maintenance and precautionary treatments on the spots that we know might cause problems later.
“I make sure my food is as good as I can, I eat many whole foods and organic when I can. I make sure I go to bed on time to improve my sleep quality.
“It’s not one thing, it’s a whole lifestyle. Sleep, hydration, nutrition. You have to be on top of these things to improve other aspects.”
