‘It’s been a rollercoaster’ – Millwall captain Jake Cooper assesses the campaign
Jake Cooper has described Millwall’s campaign as a “rollercoaster” as they close in on Championship safety following Saturday’s 3-1 win over Cardiff City.
The Lions beat the Bluebirds 3-1 to move six points clear of the bottom three with just nine points left to play for.
“It’s been a rollercoaster, so up and down,” said Cooper.
“We’ve had periods, if you take the last two weeks for instance, where we’ve lost to Huddersfield and Rotherham and we go and beat Leicester and Cardiff here at The Den. It’s been like that throughout the season.
“We had a great spell over Christmas, then dipped again.
“Now we’ve picked up again under Neil (Harris). It’s just been crazy. It feels like three seasons rolled into one, but now is the time to start picking up results and we’ve done that, so credit to all the boys and the fans that have been turning up here and getting behind us.”
Since his arrival back in February Neil Harris has managed to turn around Millwall’s fortunes at The Den – winning four and drawing one of his five games at the helm in SE16.
“He’s just given us a bit of confidence to play here again,” said Cooper. “The fans have helped that by turning up in their numbers, like they have again today.
“They get behind us and you see the impact that it has. We are disappointed by our two away performances at Rotherham and Huddersfield, barring those, I think under Neil we’ve been doing some good stuff.”
Saturday’s victory moved Millwall on to 50 points, the total that is so often considered to be the number needed to avoid relegation from the second tier.
“Fifty points is always a target in this league,” said Cooper. “Since Neil got us promoted seven years ago, 50 points has always been the target for us to get to stay up. Him coming in would have been looking at that but we have to go next week at Sunderland and our aim is to beat them and then it’s all done and dusted really, that’s our aim and hopefully we can get it done next weekend.”