Millwall and the open playoff picture

The Championship’s poor financial state has created vacancies in the top six and the excellently run Lions look set to fill one of them.

Rightly or wrongly, Millwall are better known in wider footballing circles for their infamous fanbase rather than any exploits on the pitch. Nevertheless, supporters wear this on their sleeve, with the “no one likes us, we don’t care” chant a regular soundtrack to matches at The Den.

Financially, they have never been among the second tier’s big hitters either, yet the club have become a fixture in the playoff race in recent seasons and are on course to finally break into the top six in May, presently sitting in fifth position.

Much of this is down to boss Gary Rowett, who has enjoyed a peculiar career to date. His first venture into Championship management was with Birmingham City in 2014. Taking over at St Andrews after a humiliating 8-0 defeat against Bournemouth, he led the cash-strapped Blues to 10th place in both of his first two seasons and was unlucky to be dismissed in December 2016, after a change in ownership.

Six months later, he took over at Derby and only scraped into the playoffs with the Rams despite the expensive squad at his disposal and was removed from his position at Stoke City halfway through the 2018-19 campaign with the pre-season favourites languishing in 14^th.

From this it was clear that Rowett was capable of eeking every drop of quality out of a limited team but struggled to coach more technically gifted players.

So when the Millwall job became available in October 2019, it was a perfect fit for him; a club without financial resources but one with stability, whose owners would give Rowett the time to build a competitive Championship outfit.

That is what he has done– between 2020 and 2022, the Lions registered three consecutive top half finishes, before pushing on again this season.

The atmosphere at The Den has been a big driver of the club’s improvement. Historically, Millwall have always relied upon their vocal support, but this was never truer than in 2021–22. Had the table been decided by home records, the Lions would have missed out on the title by just one point, meanwhile their away tally ranked only 17^th. In the behind-closed-doors 2020-21 campaign, the Lions picked up an equal number of points in South London and on their travels, further emphasising the advantage given to them by the fans. 

In any case, Rowett and the players should take credit too. One feature of Millwall’s playing style is their physicality at both ends of the pitch, with a league-best of 26.9 aerial duels won per game, on average. Target man Tom Bradshaw, whose performances earned him a recall to the Wales squad in March, has provided a focal point to the front line.   

However, it is the defence which has provided the foundation for their tilt at the top - the Lions had the fourth best defensive record in the division last season and have conceded just 40 so far in 2022-23. Jake Cooper, a long-serving defender with over 250 appearances for the club under his belt, has been the perfect centre-back partner for youngster Charlie Cresswell, whose loan move from Leeds has unquestionably been a success.

Millwall have recruited excellently to complement their stingy backline with flair further up the pitch too. Losing Jed Wallace, one of the division’s brightest creative sparks, on a free transfer last summer was a blow, and given Rowett’s focus on defensive discipline as a means of getting results, the departure risked making the team one-dimensional.

These concerns proved to be misplaced, because the Lions were innovative and hit the jackpot during their search for his replacement. 

Short of the funds to buy a proven Championship performer, they looked abroad, specifically to the Dutch Eredivisie. There, they found Zian Flemming, a 23-year-old attacking midfielder with 24 goals and 11 assists to his name across two seasons at Fortuna Sittard. Since moving to South London he has flourished, scoring 13 league goals – including numerous eye-catching long-range stunners – and is a plausible contender for the second tier’s player of the year award. Remarkably, he cost just under £2m – a club record for Millwall but a relative snip compared to the sums spent by their divisional rivals during much of the last decade.

The Lions have also taken advantage of churn in the squads of other Championship clubs to pick up further bargains. While Hull City’s new owners chased more glamorous signings in the form of Jean Michael Seri and Ozan Tufan in pre-season, Millwall swooped in to tempt fellow midfielder George Honeyman away from the KCOM stadium. The hard-working Sunderland academy graduate has established himself as a crucial player, despite playing in a previously unfamiliar role on the right flank.

Similarly, Duncan Watmore had proved himself to be a competent Championship forward at Middlesbrough but the explosive form of Chuba Akpom and the arrival of Cameron Archer left him struggling for minutes at The Riverside and he moved to The Den in January.

Millwall’s record at the Den has been impressive in recent seasons.

Other clubs are outperforming their spend, so Millwall’s case is not entirely unique. Coventry City are firmly in playoff contention and Luton Town are likely to book their place in the end-of-season lottery for a second year in a row. In recent seasons, not having an owner with deep pockets has proved less of a barrier to competing in the Championship than it was a decade ago.

Much of this is down to the changing financial nature of the division. Teams with parachute payments still dominate but unlike in the mid-2010s, when the chairmen of Derby County, Middlesbrough and Sheffield Wednesday consistently bankrolled expensive promotion pushes, very few clubs have continued to invest big sums without the cushion of Premier League money to fall back on.

A combination of reasons, including Covid-19 and Financial Fair Play punishments, has reduced the Championship’s overall transfer spend and blown the division wide open. Even the massive losses sustained by strugglers Reading and Cardiff City are a legacy of historic spending decisions and the pandemic, rather than any indication of current ambitions.

Clearly, the recently relegated clubs continue to enjoy a massive advantage and thus automatic promotion remains out of reach for most in the Championship; five of the previous six sides to achieve top two finishes were in receipt of parachute payments at the time. But the lack of spending among the remaining 80% of teams means the size of the financial mountain the likes of Millwall must scale to become the best of the rest and compete in the playoffs is comparably smaller than it was.

However, what sets Millwall apart from most of the other clubs who have punched above their weight is the consistency with which they have muscled their way into top six contention across multiple seasons.

Last season, Barnsley dropped to League One after finishing fifth just twelve months previously and Queens Park Rangers have bombed after two seasons of playoff flirtation. Even Huddersfield Town, who received their final parachute payment while finishing 3^rd in 2021-22, have plummeted down the table; the Terriers are currently fighting to keep their heads above water and out of the bottom three.

Should they fail to end their 33-year absence from the top flight this season, there is no reason why the Lions cannot go again next year, though.

Unlike Barnsley and Huddersfield, both of whom had to contend with the loss of their manager and several key players after their near-misses, Millwall’s personnel will largely stay the same.

Rowett’s record at Derby and Stoke will probably dissuade the Championship’s wealthier teams from taking a chance on him. Furthermore, it would be a surprise if he were to attract attention from the dvision above. Nathan Jones’ disastrous tenure at Southampton is likely to make Premier League clubs even more hesitant than they previously were about fishing in the EFL’s managerial talent pool in future, and even if it doesn’t, the Lions boss’s direct style of play would make him a bad fit for most top flight clubs anyway.  

On the pitch, in a team built on tactical strength and discipline rather than individual brilliance, Flemming is the only player who could be of interest to clubs higher up the food chain. And even if he does depart, the recruitment staff have shown that they can spot a bargain when replacing a key cog in Rowett’s well-oiled machine - the Dutchman’s presence at the club is the best proof of this.

Contrary to the lyrics of their song, it is very difficult not to like what is going on at Millwall this season and feel excited about what they could achieve in the not-so-distant future.