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ALEX Neil was pleased to give minutes to players he felt had “deserved” them in Millwall’s 1-0 win over Cambridge United in the EFL Cup Second Round. Neil made ten changes to the side that beat Norwich City 3-0 at the weekend, with captain Jake Cooper the only player to retain his place. Summer signings Elkan Baggott and Danny Batth made their debuts, and Jordi Osei-Tutu, Zak Lovelace and Lyndon Dykes made their first starts. Midfielder Alfie Massey was handed his third senior appearance. The Lions took an early lead through Cooper after Dykes’ effort hit the underside of the bar. Cambridge, managed by the club’s all-time leading goalscorer and former head coach Neil Harris, competed well for much of the game and passed up several chances to equalise in the second half. Millwall did enough, however, to progress to the Third Round, while also giving several players valuable minutes. “We made ten changes to the team,” Neil said. “There are a lot of guys who have probably deserved more minutes. “Max Crocombe’s not done anything wrong and kept a clean sheet tonight, which is good. Luke Cundle scored two goals for us already this season and again finds himself in the team. Dykes needed a game; he hasn’t done much over pre-season. Alfie Massey, it was nice to see him have a run out in the middle of the pitch as well. All in all, I thought it was a good performance. “These games are never easy, and it’s one of them ones if you do well, everybody expects it. The lads did what they needed to do. I thought they played really well in spells, and we defended really well in spells. It was a good all-round sort of performance. Can we play a bit more fluently? Yeah, of course we can, but I thought the other bits we needed to do, we did them well.”