Millwall ask for school's permission to call up 15-year-old wonderkid

Millwall have had to ask permission to be able to include teenager Zak Lovelace in their squad for tonight's match with Coventry City.

The 15-year-old is set to be on the Lions' bench for the Championship clash due to a clutch of positive Covid tests within the camp.

The club were unsuccessful in their attempt to get the fixture postponed. As well as Covid-19 cases, Millwall have a string of injuries to contend with.

Lovelace, who turns 16 next month, has travelled with Gary Rowett's squad. Rowett only has 14 senior players fit and available with a number of his squad self-isolating, and so is having to plug the bench with youngsters.

Lovelace has had to be given the all-clear to feature by his head teacher.

Which teams will get promoted from the Championship this season? Let us know in the comments

Rule 43.4 in Section 6 of the EFL rules and regulations reads: "Only those Academy Players over the age of 15 years on 1 September in any given Season may play football for a Club's first team in that Season.

It continues: "And then may only do so with the written permission of his Parent, his school's head teacher and the approval of The League."

Lovelace joined Millwall's academy at the age of 13 in July 2019. Prior to that he had been at Crystal Palace and Brighton.

He has previously trained with the Lions' first-team on several occasions and has impressed at youth level.

Tonight's clash with Coventry is one of just three Championship games to get the green light.

A glut of matches across the top four divisions have been cancelled over the festive period due to rising Covid cases.

Rowett has spoken about the far from ideal build-up to tonight's match.

"We've got two outfield players and a keeper at the minute, senior players [for the bench]. That's where we are," Rowett said.

"What we'll have to do is try to fill it with young players from the academy and the under-23s as best we can.

"We're testing daily, I think that's the issue at the moment, we had quite a strong outbreak initially and then we had a four-, five-day circuit breaker to try to mitigate the situation.

"Unfortunately, because we're in London, we've had a drip-feed, a PCR coming back positive, a day later another one. We were looking not too bad and then we had another positive result on Monday.

"At the moment it's just a real challenge. You have to try to get through the games, we understand that, we want to play games. But what you don't want is two or three players having to come on to the pitch that haven't trained and have just recovered from Covid after 10 days [isolating].

"It's a really, really delicate situation at the minute but we'll put our best foot forward and we'll travel to Coventry and try to win the match."

Millwall are four points behind Coventry, who can move back into the top six with a win.