NEIL Harris admitted he was relieved Millwall finally got their first away win of the season – and vowed his side would carry on and “scare the life out of teams”.
Millwall came from 3-2 down with three minutes left against Leeds at Elland Road on Saturday to win 4-3, after blowing a two-goal half-time lead.
Harris was pleased with how his players’ heads didn’t drop, despite time running out to salvage something from the game.
“The players will [keep going] because that’s their drive and hunger,” Harris said. “They believe. What we’re doing so far in this league is making people take note.
“It’s a relief because of the manner of the game. Our 1,500 fans, pretty much that group have been at every away game this year, they come to every game because we have been so good. We just hadn’t won games.
“That takes the hoodoo away, but we won’t change what we do, we’ll be exactly the same team and play exactly the same way. We’ll scare the life out of teams like we have in every other game this year.
“What we’ve got to do is learn from the defensive lapses we had and carry on showing our quality.
“Some teams have got away with murder to get a point or three against us on their home patches and you get a little bit fed up of going in for a drink afterwards with the opposing manager and them going, ‘you were unbelievable today, I can’t believe we got a result out of that’.
“There’s only so many times you can say to the players, ‘well done, lads, what a great performance’. Today we can actually say, ‘excellent, well done, we’ll learn from that 15-minute second-half spell and we’ll go on to the next away game’.”
Jed Wallace scored the injury-time winner, but earlier had a goal ruled out, a call Harris was unhappy with. Afterwards he was asked if he feels those kinds of decisions will even themselves out over the season.
“No, because of the goal disallowed, it was a disgrace of a decision. Steve Morison is not interfering with the goalkeeper, I don’t understand it at all,” Harris said.
“I don’t feel that over the course of the season the bad luck we’ve had can even itself out because we’ve had so many horrendous decisions. But sometimes as a Millwall player or manager you have to take it on the chin.”
After Aiden O’Brien and Lee Gregory scored in the first half, Pierre-Michel Lasogga pulled one back, before a mistake from Jordan Archer allowed Kemar Roofe to prod in an equaliser.
Lasogga gave his side an unlikely lead, but substitute Tom Elliott made it 3-3 in the 87th minute of an enthralling game, and Wallace fired home a deflected effort.
Archer then made sure of the points by saving from Conor Shaughnessy.
“Even after the fourth goal we still gave them a chance to score, and it was a great save from Jordan, one he owed us from earlier. He’ll be the first to admit that,” Harris said.
“As much as I’m delighted with the final outcome, definitely with the result, there is certainly a lot of learning for us.
“I left the players with ringing ears, but my final words were, ‘well done’, because that’s three points gained today.”
Image: Millwall FC