Since we last met: Millwall - Square Ball 16/9/23
WE NEVER WIN
Written by: Moxcowhite • Daniel Chapman
The Champo keeps doing this to us, reminder after reminder
after reminder that we have to play Millwall twice a season now. Starting with
this game, which is literally against Millwall, at Millwall. Part of me would
like to force Jesse Marsch to come back for this one to punish him for landing
us in it, but then I remember he would have been absolutely insufferable if
he’d been coaching us through it for real: ‘Y’know, I’ve heard a lot about the
atmosphere, and I gotta be honest with you, bring it on, man (weird chuckle),
bring it on (obtuse anecdote about college basketball)’.
Last time
A chaotic night at Elland Road that threatened to become
another low in our post-Christmas slump on the way to promotion: 2-0 down at
half-time without Kalvin Phillips or brand new signings Jean-Kevin Augustin and
Ian Poveda, Leeds were booed off. They came back early for the second half and
within twenty minutes the score was 3-2, thanks to one of those awesome spells
when Leeds weren’t so much mounting waves of attacks as one long attack
occasionally interrupted by goals. Two of them were from Pat Bamford, inspiring
his infamous hands-on-ears ‘celebration’; Pablo Hernandez got the other, then
the spotlight was back on Bamford doing a very appropriate but highly
uncharacteristic hoolie dance in front of Millwall’s keeper. That helped
prevent Millwall doing an unjust double over Leeds. They’d beaten us 2-1 in
Bermondsey in October but only thanks to a red card incompetently given against
Gaetano Berardi – later overturned on appeal – by James Linington, a ref Lee
Bowyer had previously said “Shouldn’t be reffing” after watching him being
intimidated by Steve Evans.
Their story since then
Well, we haven’t had to play them, so that’s good enough for
me. It has been a close thing though. Their story, since Gary Rowett replaced
Neil Harris as manager, has been about concerning underachievement, concerning
from the point of view of anyone who finds the idea of Millwall achieving
anything to be terrible. They nearly followed us up in our title season,
finishing two points outside the play-offs, and they’ve been hovering around
with their eyes on promotion ever since: 11th, then 9th, then 8th last season,
a point away from the last play-off spot. Given last season’s play-off final
was between Coventry City and victors Luton Town, the Championship seems to
have become a division that is very hard to get out of, but also, absolutely
anyone can get out of. Could even the Premier League spin Luton versus Millwall
as a Super Sunday glamour tie? We’ve never been closer to finding out.
Their situation now
I could describe Millwall’s start to the season as
reassuringly lousy if only they hadn’t won more games than us and weren’t above
us in the table. They’re now without last season’s star loanees (I promise)
Charlie Cresswell and Jamie Shackleton, but new striker Kevin Nisbet has
already scored two since joining from Hibernian. Maybe they’ve finally found a
centre-forward to replace Mathieu ‘le grand’ Smith. Otherwise, it’s largely the
same bunch of scoundrels still trying to do the same things: Jake Cooper has
over 300 appearances for them now, Shaun Hutchinson is still there, Murray
Wallace, George Saville, Tom Bradshaw. They’re just going to finish 8th or 9th
again aren’t they? Surely you’d get bored.
Always remember
‘Lasogga, gerrin t’box you fat…’
Boom!!! #lufc 3-2 pic.twitter.com/aAhitQH0s6
— Phil (@leedsunited86) January 20, 2018
Becchio, obviously, didn’t need telling.
Better to forget
Pretty much all of it. Even those two memorable moments
above came during defeats, the second a particularly painful play-off
semi-final. Going back to 1985, our record at Millwall is W3 D2 L14, so there’s
still a strong argument for just giving them the three points and saving
ourselves the time and petrol.
