Josh Coburn backed to "justify" £5m Millwall transfer fee despite fresh "issues" | OneFootball

Millwall have had a good start to their Championship season, but an injury to Josh Coburn has shone a light on their potential attacking issues.

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

Millwall's strong start to their Championship season has one small blemish on its horizon, which is a lack of attacking options in the light of the injury to Josh Coburn.

Millwall, perennial over-achieving underdogs of the EFL Championship, have had another decent start to 2025-26.

With a third of it played, they've been in a play-off spot for much of the season so far, while in the EFL Cup they became the first team to beat Coventry City and then only lost to Premier League rivals Crystal Palace after a penalty shootout.

But none of this means that there aren't potential clouds on the horizon.

Injuries are biting hard, particularly in attacking positions, and the news that striker Josh Coburn, who made his loan move from Middlesbrough permanent during the summer for a fee that could reach £5 million, is a particular blow, especially when added to Femi Azeez being out until the start of December with a hamstring injury.

The Lions haven't been particularly struggling in front of goal so far this season, but the possibility of them drying up is starting to feel realer and realer.

"He will put goals away" - Josh Coburn back to succeed at Millwall upon return from injury

Coburn scored five times in the Championship last season for Millwall, but he only appeared 21 times for them in the second tier, owing to injury issues throughout the campaign, and he's on the sidelines once more currently with a quad issue, which is going to keep him on the treatment table for a number of months.

With all of this in mind, FLW have spoken to our Millwall fan pundit Lucas Ball and asked him about his feelings about Coburn's injury, the fee paid for him in the summer, and whether he feels any frustration over an injury list which seems to be getting longer and longer.

"Injuries throughout our squad have been a frustration for me throughout the season," Lucas told FLW.

"I've said on a few occasions that it's something that the club desperately need to review. Coburn himself had these injury issues prior to us signing him, so we knew about certain issues.

"He's still relatively young, so I do think as he develops they'll become less common, but that doesn't help us out right now, particularly when Mihailo Ivanovic isn't in the best run of form and Macaulay Langstaff's had spells out this season already as well."

But Lucas is confident that Coburn can, when he gets back to full fitness, start scoring goals again for Millwall, and that the player justifies the financial outlay spent on him during the summer.

"We're a little bit light up front at the moment; that's why I would have liked another striker in the summer. But it's just one of those things," Lucas added.

"Coburn has done okay for us this season. He's not every fan's cup of tea, certainly, but he does okay.

"I think if we get him enough quality chances he will put enough goals away to justify the initial fee, and then the add-ons are dependent on big bonuses in terms of us getting promoted, so at that point it becomes relatively small-fry."

Lucas feels that the return of Coburn is important to the team, to relieve some of the pressure on the remaining Millwall players who aren't missing through injury at the moment.

"I'm not too concerned with that side of things," Lucas admitted.

'Hopefully we can get him back fit for the new year or that sort of time. By the sounds of it that's a decent time frame, and then we'll see what happens for him.

"I think that's the timeline we have to look at for now, and then, hopefully, we can have strike force in January potentially to give Ivanovic and Langstaff support, because at the moment goals are becoming a little bit hard to come by, particularly with Femi Azeez out injured."

Josh Coburn injury isn't the only attacking injury that Millwall have to contend with

Josh Coburn had an injury disrupted 2024-25 on loan to Millwall from Middlesbrough. A groin injury kept him out of the Lions team from September until the start of November, and then a metatarsal fracture kept him out again from the end of November until the middle of February. In total, he ended up making just twenty appearances for the Lions and scoring five goals during his season-long loan, last time around.

Millwall were still persuaded to spend a reported club-record £5 million for him during the summer, only for a quad injury to further derail him until the new year.

This creates a particular headache for manager Alex Neil because of another attacking injury. Femi Azeez picked up a hamstring injury at the end of October, and Southwark News have reported that Neil doesn't believe that he will be ready to return until the start of December.

On the pitch, Millwall haven't been particularly struggling for goals so far this season, but there doesn't seem to be a standout goalscorer for them at present. The injured Azeez is their top goalscorer, and what's noticeable about their goalscorers list for this season so far is how widely distributed their goalscoring is.

This is, in many ways, a good thing. It means that they're not over-reliant on any one player to score for them, but it's obviously an issue that so few of their goals are coming from their strikers. And of course, should any further injuries be picked up, such issues are likely to snowball still further.

Getting the ball in the back of the net was a big problem for Neil's team last season. Despite finishing it in eighth place, the 47 League goals that they scored was one of the lowest tallies in the entire division.

It may be considered to ultimately have been the reason why the Lions couldn't quite push up into the play-off positions last season. If they're to go one better this time around, it's a conundrum that Alex Neil will have to resolve.