Coventry and Middlesbrough had the highest billing earlier in the week ahead of the heavyweight championship bout. And the huge fight did not disappoint.
Frank Lampard’s side made good progress to the top before being pulled back by Boro and Kim Helberg and go into Monday night’s clash as the top team. After Boro reached a new level of consistency and blew a 10-point deficit, they unsurprisingly came out on top as Coventry’s obituary had already been written. Championship Legacy.
We should all know by now that when it comes to unpredictability, excitement, and sheer ridiculousness, there’s no match in this department. Still, even by the Championship’s weird and wonderful standards, it feels almost unrealistic to see Millwall leading the charge behind a fanciful top two heading into the spring.
However, the hard-working south Londoner sits third in the table on merit and has his sights firmly set on the Premier League.
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Since returning to the Championship in 2017, Millwall have established themselves as perennial play-off challengers, although they have never been able to get in the way of the glass ceiling of the top six.
However, under the impressive Alex Neil, Millwall look a good bet to reach the play-offs at this level for the first time in over 20 years.
The results of the last two games, away to play-off rivals Wrexham and in a disappointing loss to Sheffield Wednesday, speak to a variety of reasons. A 2-0 win over Wrexham caught the attention of their rivals, but games like last week’s game against the Owls, without a win since September and without a goal since Boxing Day, are games where Millwall fans are used to seeing their team get out of trouble. But not this time.
The team Neil has assembled reflects the impressive Scotsman in many ways. They have quietly but effectively gone about their business this season. Since he first took over as Millwall manager on January 1 last year, only Frank Lampard, 30, has achieved more Championship wins than Neil’s 27.
During this period, Neil not only rehabilitated his reputation after a tumultuous period at Stoke, but also pushed Millwall into uncharted territory, with the Lions boasting more points than ever before at this stage of the season in the Championship era.
Despite their reputation for being intimidating at home, Millwall’s form away from home actually gives them a platform to attack the automatic promotion spots.
Impressive Alex Neil turns Millwall into promotion contenders (Image: Harriet Massey)
The Lions currently have the fourth-best record in the division with 26 points on the road. That’s just four fewer people than we had at The Den. This is the same total points they racked up on the road for the entirety of the 2024-25 season, compared to just one point last season. Neil developed them into top travelers, something they would never have experienced in their current second-tier league.
At home, Neil learned the unique power of The Den. Apart from the club’s legends in Harris, no club has been able to fully embrace the chaos of Bermondsey’s packed house and turn it into consistent results.
Millwall briefly sounded alarm bells as they lost three of their opening four home league games by an aggregate score of 1-9. But Neil and his team have improved and have only lost once at home since then.
Perhaps more importantly, the stage fright that has plagued Millwall in recent years when playing in front of sold-out crowds has disappeared, highlighted by last month’s 4-0 victory over Charlton Athletic in front of the highest league attendance in the stadium’s history.
There was also an evolution in style. Millwall’s strengths from past seasons are now being viewed more favorably than in seasons past, with set pieces and athleticism making a comeback in the game. But they have more strings to their bow. They are direct yet effective, dangerous in transition and able to produce good fluid football.
Femi Azeez is one of the best attackers in the division and the team’s figurehead. He developed under Neil’s guidance and became Millwall’s talisman in his first full season at Championship level. He has seven goals and four assists from the right wing and going into his final game of the season looks like a Premier League player in all but name.
Femi Azeez has been Millwall’s talisman this year and is their joint top scorer (Image: Tom West/NurPhoto)
Although Millwall are the lowest-scoring side of the top six teams, they have traditionally been one of the most formidable defensive teams in the division. And after expanding their style to exploit the numbers in front of goal needed for promotion, Millwall’s rearguard was able to develop into an incisive scorer to complement the work of Azeez and others at the top end of the pitch.
Millwall’s first-choice back four of Alfie Doughty, captain Jake Cooper, Caleb Taylor and Tristan Krama is a surprising fact for a right-back, but they have racked up 17 goal contributions between them this term, almost half of Millwall’s total of 41 goals.
The evolution on the pitch has been made possible by James Berylson, who remains the antithesis of the modern football club owner. Although its budget has increased, it still looks dwarfed by its rivals, especially those supported by big parachute payments. Yet, under his guidance, Millwall went from one of the most predictable Championship clubs in the transfer market to one of the most exciting, spending record-breaking sums in successive transfer windows.
In January, the Millwall manager added Anthony Patterson and Tommy Watson, the two players who had the biggest impact on Sunderland’s play-off final victory at Wembley last year. Barry Bannan also joined the team, but at the beginning of the year he overcame a devastating injury crisis, leaving Neil without a recognized midfielder for several games. Still, it wasn’t enough to derail this Millwall team. The team’s resilience has increased tenfold since it deflated in back-to-back away games at Birmingham and Portsmouth in November.
The big question is whether these additions, and the return of other key players like Billy Mitchell and Josh Coburn, will make a difference when it matters most.
Like championship boxers, Millwall traditionally build momentum and let go in the second half of the campaign to break through the top six, only to run out of gas in the championship rounds.
The specter of Millwall’s capitulation to Blackburn Rovers on the final day of the 2022-23 season, after heading into the second half with a 3-1 lead, will haunt them well into next season. It felt like a trauma from which Rowett and his team never truly recovered.
Millwall captain Jake Cooper has been a rock for many years and now could lead the club to the Premier League (Image: Richard Pelham)
The difference this time is that there is no basis to make up for. Millwall have built an eight-point buffer against the top-six chasers and, although Ipswich Town and Hull City have games in hand, they can afford to keep one eye on Coventry and Middlesbrough rather than looking wistfully over their shoulder.
Millwall are in uncharted territory and given that they are -3.73 below XG, it is not without merit that there are question marks as to whether they have the firepower to chase down the top two. His shot conversion rate is also low at 9.76%.
But they are on course to secure a playoff spot even in the worst case scenario. And perhaps most importantly, Millwall have nothing to fear from the run-in. They faced Coventry at the CBS Arena last month, but unfortunately were sent off empty-handed.
This was the only game they have lost since Christmas and with games against Hull, Ipswich and Middlesbrough coming up in May they will decide their own fate.
A new challenge awaits that has so far kept a low profile, but one that will likely attract increasing attention to Millwall at the end of the season. This level of oversight may be a new experience for the team, but importantly, Neil has been here before.
No one at Millwall will take anything for granted after their punitive experience three years ago, even if the landscape of The Den has changed significantly since then.
However, as the 40th anniversary of Millwall’s solitary promotion to the English First Division approaches, there is a growing sense that this year will be another special one.
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