Beating Burnley would mean 'everything' to Millwall man who left Turf Moor a year ago
One member of the Millwall team will have extra motivation to impress when he faces Burnley later today.
Lukas Jensen left his native Denmark to join the Clarets in 2019, yet failed to make a senior appearance during his four years with the club.
The 25-year-old had loans at Bolton Wanderers, Carlisle United and Accrington Stanley before leaving permanently for Lincoln City last year.
After a successful season with the Imps, keeping 21 clean sheets, the stopper was snapped up by Millwall, who face Scott Parker’s men at The Den this afternoon.
While Jensen admits he has “respect” for his former club, he’d love nothing more than to get one over on them.
“I said to the team that it (the Burnley game) is already the most important of the season,” Jensen told the South London Press. “There are two games I’m looking forward to – Burnley home and Burnley away. Nothing else.
“I was there [for] four years. To come back and win against them would mean everything to me.
“Don’t get me wrong, I have a good relationship with Burnley. It was the club that got me to England. I had good and bad times. I was on the bench in the Premier League and made three appearances for them.
“There were so many good things but when you are not there any more I still want to beat them – just to show ‘yeah, you’re missing out on me now because you didn’t want to extend me’. Hopefully I can do my job on Sunday.”
When Jensen was brought to Turf Moor in 2019, the club already had Nick Pope, Joe Hart and Bailey Peacock-Farrell on their books in the goalkeeping department.
Jensen added: “I was 19 at the time and because I was that age if they couldn’t see me having a future close to the first team there would not be any point bringing me in,” said Jensen. “Because they already had some good goalkeepers.
“They needed that new project who could progress to the first-team. They saw me as that.
“When I left it was kind of a joint decision. I didn’t want to stay as third choice. If you are a goalkeeper then you need to be number one to play games.
“I wanted to create my own career and so I dropped down two leagues to Lincoln. Since then I think I’ve done a decent job. Hopefully that can get even better in a couple of years, when I’m in the Premier League with Millwall.”