THE Millwall manager’s job is not the only hot-seat that Gary Rowett and Neil Harris have in common.
As boss of Derby County and then Stoke City, Rowett was not only expected to challenge for promotion but ultimately lead his team to the Premier League.
It’s not just last season’s fifth-place finish and subsequent challenge in the play-offs that has placed that same kind of expectation on Harris.
Cardiff are a big club in the Championship and were in the top flight only two seasons ago. They still have a large bulk of the squad that got promoted but went straight back down, both seasons with Neil Warnock in charge.
The Bluebirds were one of the favourites for promotion before the season started, but have won just three out of 11 league games, leaving Harris open to criticism.
Some of that has come from close to home, with Graham Kavanagh – who made 164 appearances for Cardiff – questioning what the playing “philosophy” is after their 1-0 home defeat to Bristol City before the international break.
The perilous nature of being a Championship boss who doesn’t deliver on expectations early in the season was underlined last weekend, when Phillip Cocu was sacked by Derby.
Rowett led Derby to sixth in 2017-18 before the Rams lost to Fulham in the play-off semi-finals. He left to take over at Stoke that summer, but was sacked the following January after a 2-0 defeat at home to Bristol City that left the Potters eight points off the play-offs.
“When the crowd boo and join in with the songs that the opposition fans are singing,” Rowett said after that game, “it’s not the ideal way to spend a New Year’s Day afternoon.
“I’m the manager, I’ll take it on the chin, and if the players go out there and don’t perform, it’s my fault. I’m pretty thick-skinned and determined, and this is probably the first job I’ve had where things haven’t gone as well as I’d have liked quickly enough. The reality is I’ve got to sort it out.”
Rowett wasn’t given that time. Now Harris is under similar pressure at Cardiff.
“I’ve not spoken to Chopper for a while but that’s just because we’re all so busy trying to navigate through what is a very different season,” Rowett said.
“I suppose you’d have to ask him whether he’s happy coming back with no fans there or whether he’d prefer they were there, I’m sure they’d give him a very good reception.
“It probably won’t feel quite so weird for him coming back in a quiet stadium. It won’t feel like he’s come back to The Den properly.
“It’s always a strange one when a manager has got such affinity with a club, a warmth for the club, when he comes back with a different club.
“I think that’s going to be an interesting one for him.
“But of course he’ll want to win the game for his current club, and we want to win the game ourselves.”
Rowett knows all about the pressure of managing a big Championship club.
He said: “It’s impossible not to think about it because there’s always pressure from above at clubs like that if you’re not performing as well as you want. That’s just the way it works when there is a lot more expectation.
“But as a manager – and I’m sure it’s the same for Neil – you just have to get on with your job and do it as well as you can.
“You try to control what you can control and you don’t worry about the things that you can’t.
“I think every manager faces that little bit of external pressure. We finished eighth last season and there is an expectation even from some of our own fans to finish better than that. That’s fine, that’s what we want.
“At the same time that expectation brings along a little bit of pressure that as a manager you have to try and deal with and manage.”
Possible Millwall starting XI: Bialkowski; Romeo, Hutchinson, Pearce, Cooper, Malone; Leonard, Woods; J Wallace, Smith, Bennett.
Match odds: Millwall 6/4 Draw 21/5 Cardiff 7/4
Last meeting: Championship (Boxing Day, 2019): Cardiff 1-1 Millwall (Flint 58; J Wallace 73).
Image: Millwall FC