Aiden O’Brien’s emotional interview as he discusses life at Millwall and why his next move will see him playing as a striker

BY RICHARD CAWLEY
richard@slpmedia.co.uk

One of Aiden O’Brien’s first comments after being asked to sum up his Millwall career speaks volumes for the influence the football club has had on his life.

And even though more than a decade’s service to the Lions is over, the 26-year-old attacker will never forget how they transformed his prospects.

“I’ve gone from a little boy – 15 years old, coming from a rough neck of the woods in Holloway Road with not a pot to p**** in for him or his family – to being given an opportunity to go and make something of myself and provide for my family.

“I could talk about this all day -it’s really been a life journey for me.

“I had the chance to give us a better way of life. When I got that opportunity I knew, whatever happened, I wasn’t going to let that slip. I thank Millwall from the bottom of my heart for giving me that opportunity. Because God knows what I would have been involved in and doing right now if I didn’t make it.

“Millwall will always have a place in my heart.”

O’Brien left his mark at The Den. He played 226 matches for the South London outfit and scored 44 goals. He won promotion via the League One play-offs in 2017. He won four international caps with the Republic of Ireland.

“Before I even talk about the football I’d just say that without the fans at this football club then this football club might as well fold,” said O’Brien.

“The fans make this place. Since the pandemic hit we’ve been playing football without the fans – it is nowhere near the same. It doesn’t feel right – Millwall without the fans.

“They’ve got the best fans in the world and I can’t thank them enough for supporting me through my career. It’s helped me grow into a man. They’ve given me stick to buck up my ideas and praised me when I’ve done well.

“Hopefully we’ll meet again soon. I don’t need to say too much about the staff and players, the ones I’ve spoken to privately already know how much they mean to me and what they’ve done for me in my career. The likes of Scott Fitzgerald, Neil Harris, Larry McAvoy and Anthony Gell – the list goes on of people who have helped and stuck by me.

“Millwall is a family club. They believed in me. It’s a working-class environment and they are very passionate about their team. I grew up in a working-class environment. I can relate to their passion. They want you to work hard and the quality is just a bonus. I kind of got that from the start – if you give your all they aren’t going to turn on you as much.

“If somebody new came into the club, all I’d tell them is: ‘Work your b******* off and the rest will take care of itself’. It’s as simple as that. The fans appreciate work-rate and wearing  your heart on your sleeve. If you do that then you’ll win their hearts over.”

O’Brien has seen his minutes on the pitch drop. During their final campaign in League One he clocked up 2,784 minutes but this season featured for just 659 minutes in the Championship, a reduction on 1,498 in the 2018-19 programme.

“I’m not a left-winger,” he said. “People who don’t know me will probably think I am – but I’m not. I’m a full-on number nine or number 10. Put me there and I’m telling you I will get more goals. It’s just a fact.

“If I’ve scored 44 goals from left-mid, which is further away from the opposition goal, it makes sense if I push myself closer then instead of 44 goals it might be 88 goals – double.

“That’s my position. I’m not somebody who wants to get the ball, run down the line and put a cross in. It’s not what I want. I’m more ‘you cross the ball to me and I’ll put it in the goal’.

“I adapted and I have enjoyed it. But this next club I go to, I will be playing in my position – I guarantee that.

“Them two [Morison and Gregory] were a very good duo. They bounced off each other. That’s why I feel at the time that Neil Harris freed up that left midfield, left-forward role for me – because he knew I could score goals. He thought ‘Aide, I can’t play you up top – because these two are really good together – but I can put you left, because you can play every week’. That’s what I think happened.

“It’s kind of a success story really because of the amount of games I played, goals I scored and my assists. Neil made a decision and it worked.”

O’Brien has so many Millwall memories. The match-ball from his hat-trick in a 3-1 win at Crewe in September 2015 is in easy reach.

“All the players signed it – which shows the bond we had,” he said. “O’Brien the Lion – well done pal [is one of the messages].

“It’s been so long but I can still remember perfectly my first goal at Brentford [on his full debut in March 2015]. I felt like the fans were literally on top of me. A little header at the back stick.

“Promotion at Wembley was incredible. I know at the time you had people saying: ‘Why are the fans coming on the pitch?’ But I kind of slipped up by saying I could understand the excitement! And I did – the team they’ve supported all these years gets promoted. They wanted to run on the pitch and share the moment and achievement with us.

“That’s just the Millwall way.

“The promotion was the icing on the cake – the fact I can leave now and say that I scored 44 goals, 20 assists and played out of my position most of the time but just got on with it, got promoted from League One to the Championship and played more than 200 games…I feel I’ve earned my stripes with this club.

“I wish I’d got the send off I wanted, which was to clap the fans the last game of the season and give a wave goodbye. That would’ve been nice – but there was still a nice response on Twitter.”

The coronavirus pandemic not only denied O’Brien a chance to bid an emotional farewell to the Lions fanbase, it could also impact on his next destination.

There has been plenty of talk of football clubs – facing the prospect of a heavily restricted amount of fans being allowed to attend fixtures from October – cutting their expenditure.

O’Brien said: “Being out of contract now is going to be much harder than if I’d been out of contract last year – it’s just how it is.

“Gary Rowett ain’t doing it out of spite. He’s trying to free up budget to bring in people. That’s fine – but it’s going to be really hard for me to get what I want.

“But at the same time I feel like what I’ve done in my football career and what I’ve actually achieved, it might not be as hard as for other people lower down in the leagues.

“He [Rowett] told me I was a brilliant player and to go and score 10 or 15 goals somewhere else. It was quite weird because the amount he was bigging me up in the meeting – if you think that highly of me, then why don’t you play me?

“But he handled it well. He let me know [earlier in the campaign that O’Brien would not get offered new terms], which I was happy with. I think the respect was there in the meeting. He knows I’ve been here a long time, it was all done very professionally.

“It was sad for me to hear, of course, but I took it on board, I didn’t throw my toys out the pram. I trained hard. I tried to give the other forwards competition. I still wanted to play.

“I signed out professionally. I think he’d say that too.

“It’s about finding the right team. I’m only 26 – don’t forget that. I’m not even at the peak of my career yet. I believe the team that gets me it is going to be a really good bit of business because I’m still hungry and want to prove myself by scoring loads more goals in a professional league and still hopefully get another shot at it with Ireland.”