NEIL Harris has left Millwall in a better place than when he took over.
It was a shock to hear of his departure on Thursday evening. There certainly had been no indication it was on his mind the previous night.
Harris had made a tactical change at half-time at Luton and it worked. His side were four minutes away from a first win on the road this season after Tom Bradshaw’s goal before Callum McManaman equalised.
Millwall had gained two away points in a week and were heading into a contest against Leeds United at a sold-out Den. The type of contest Harris relishes.
So the timing seems strange, though there have been signs this season of tension in the manager.
Twenty minutes after the final whistle at Blackburn, Harris was still sat in the dugout staring at an empty pitch as the club’s media team waited to conduct the post-match interview.
After the home defeat to QPR, he stood up and left immediately after answering a question just as another one was being directed his way.
Harris had promised change in the summer and he followed through. He signed nine first-team players and Millwall took seven points from the first three league games.
But they haven’t won since then and you wondered when Harris was staring at that Ewood Park turf if he was thinking he had taken the club as far as he could. He had changed personnel but performances and results were pretty much the same.
This is certainly not a case of ‘losing the dressing room’. The players were full of fight at Huddersfield and Luton.
In the second half at Kenilworth Road I was typing in my report what a stubborn side Millwall were. They were in their manager’s image. They had been out-classed in the opening 45 minutes by a promoted side with limited means, yet they had ground to half-time level.
Harris brought on Ben Thompson, who he had given a league debut to in August 2015, and Jed Wallace, who he signed three times. Both combined for Bradshaw’s goal. That close-range tap-in at the back post would have delighted Harris, the club’s record goal-scorer.
Harris was appointed with the Lions destined for and ending up in League One in 2015 after the disastrous Ian Holloway tenure.
Harris reshaped his squad, clearing it out of the big earners and bringing in people he trusted.
Harris met Steve Morison on holiday when the latter said, ‘so, are you going to sign me?’
Morison was the ideal front man for Harris’ system, and another former team-mate, Tony Craig, was signed to lead the dressing room and set standards, a mantra Harris so often repeated.
I was at the training ground one morning when Harris asked an under-23 player what time it was. “Ten to ten,” the player responded. “You start at 10am, you should have been here 20 minutes ago,” Harris said. “I’ll have some of that,” he said to me with a grin as we went to do our weekly interview.
Often instructive insights into a manager come from those players he has released. Players could be bitter, but not one had a bad word to say about him. Byron Webster and David Worrall spring to mind.
If players needed extra time off for personal issues the manager supported them. Webster’s family was based up north and he was accommodated when he wanted to take an extra day to spend time with them.
In Harris’ first full season in charge Millwall reached the League One play-off final but lost to Barnsley.
There were ructions in the dressing room when Morison was meant to lead the team out at Wembley before an injury to Webster saw the armband passed to Craig. But it’s a measure of Harris’ management of a dressing room that any bad feeling didn’t spill into the next season.
Millwall went on a raucous FA Cup run including victories over top-flight Bournemouth and Watford – the latter’s players Morison told to stop “whingeing” – before Premier League champions Leicester City came to The Den.
Jake Cooper was sent off in the 52nd minute but Millwall, roared on by a sold-out stadium, kept piling forward regardless and Shaun Cummings’ injury-time winner is an iconic moment.
After beating Bradford in their second consecutive play-off final through Morison’s goal, 2017-18 was a wild ride up the Championship table to sixth with two games left. Harris said his team were like a “steam train” but their journey ended just short of the Premier League.
The following season was difficult, though there was another extraordinary FA Cup win when Murray Wallace scored in injury-time to beat Everton 3-2.
But not all was well and after Championship safety was secured with two games left Harris opened up on the unprofessionalism of some of his squad.
Like his first summer – after Millwall had used 33 players in that 2014-15 season – there was a clear-out and Harris got the players he wanted.
Millwall started well and gained seven points from their first three league games. They won at West Brom in the EFL Cup but then there was that late collapse at Oxford. The previous season’s failings coming back to haunt them.
The atmospheres at The Den in the wins over Preston and Sheffield Wednesday – the latter a typical, fighting Millwall performance under Harris – were magnificent.
But things turned sour very quickly.
The criticism on social media was as intense as I’ve seen it in four-and-a-half years. After that good start fans weren’t seeing any progression. Yet Millwall probably should have won at Middlesbrough and a freak goal cost them at home to Hull. Another freak goal handed QPR victory at The Den and the team were booed off the pitch.
It didn’t matter that there were teams below Millwall in the table who had spent millions more. It’s hard to justify lower-table stability, or stasis as some see it, however realistic that might be.
There wasn’t a win since August and Millwall faced going deep into October without one.
In the away end on Wednesday night, fans sang, “We’re fucking shit”. Normally it’s at away games when fans are at their most defiant: “What did you say about us?”
That chant must have hurt Harris. There’s always going to be criticism but it was the first time I’d heard it at such a collective volume.
Harris had asked for perspective recently, and a glance at the table shows big-spending Stoke, Reading, Huddersfield and Middlesbrough below them.
But consolidation is a hard sell.
Whoever follows Harris has a tough job, but comes into a club with good structures and a pathway from the youth teams to the first team that the manager restored.
They will also have to get the fans.
‘This is the Lions Den.’
‘Super Neil’ reminded Millwall supporters, and opposition teams, what that meant.
Image: Millwall FC