‘Unbelievable Millwall support at Southampton – we need them to help us at The Den’ – Danny McNamara

Danny McNamara has described Millwall’s support at Southampton last weekend as “unbelievable” and is confident they will continue to back the South London club in their fight for Championship survival.

A little less than 3,000 fans made the trip to the South Coast as new head coach Neil Harris kicked off with a 2-1 win.

But Millwall are still only a point above the bottom three after Huddersfield and QPR both won as well, knocking Stoke City into the drop zone alongside Rotherham and Sheffield Wednesday.

Asked about the backing that Lions fans gave Harris’ team at St Mary’s Stadium, McNamara told the South London Press: “From minute one until the end of the game they were unbelievable. The players felt that as well. We came in at half-time and were like ‘jesus, this is some atmosphere’. They play a massive part for us.

“I know they will be behind us for the rest of the season. We love playing in front of them.”

Saturday’s fixture against Watford is the first of six matches remaining at The Den. Millwall’s home record has been poor, with just 16 points from 17 games. Only Rotherham have a worst home return.

“I can understand why the fans are the way they are at the moment (in recent home games) – they are frustrated and know what we are capable of,” said McNamara, who is a Millwall supporter and came through the academy.

“We have definitely underperformed at home. The Den has been a fortress when I first came into the team and we know how intimidating The Den is. We can have anyone come down there – with the way the stadium is and the fans are – and we can turn them over there.

“We need to make it that way for the last six home games.

“I definitely feel with Neil coming in that the fans will know that (it needs to be uncomfortable for opponents). There are going to be ups and downs but it’s important the fans get behind us and we just dig in – try and get the results we can.”

McNamara has not tried to crunch the numbers to work out what he feels will be the points total needed to stay up.

“I don’t really like doing that,” he said. “I know where we are in the table and I know it isn’t great. But we can only focus on every game as it comes.

“Coming down to the last few games I might have a little look, just to see where we are at.

“You get the vibe anyway – you know from the way the lads are and the manager is anyway.”

Harris has replaced Joe Edwards, who lasted just 19 matches as head coach after being appointed in November.

McNamara said: “I didn’t get the game time I wanted under Joe but what I will say is no matter how much game time I had, he would always be supportive of me and talk to me. He’d tell me what I could improve on.

“I felt a bit sorry for Joe losing his job but it’s football – it’s a results business. I think Joe would understand that. He was a bit unfortunate but we need to move on from that. Neil has come in and we’re fully focused under Neil. The club is going in the right direction and we’ve got to finish on a high.”

See tomorrow’s South London Press for more from McNamara.