Jed Wallace: Millwall’s players believe we can do something special this season

BY RICHARD CAWLEY
richard@slpmedia.co.uk

Jed Wallace reckons that the race for the Championship play-offs is wide open – and there is every reason for Millwall to still believe they can make it.

The Lions are four points behind sixth-placed Preston North End and look to follow up on an impressive 1-0 win at Deepdale when they they go to Wigan tomorrow afternoon.

You can probably go as far down as 11th-placed Swansea for clubs that still have the potential to finish in the top six.

“There are a lot of good teams this season rather than the last three or four when you had two or three clubs that were miles ahead,” said Wallace. “West Brom and Leeds have felt like the best teams we have played by a fair distance but everyone else, give or take a couple of clubs, are on a level playing field.

“If you take the emotion out of the West Brom game [a 2-0 defeat at The Den] they brought on Matt Phillips, Charlie Austin and Kamil Grosicki – that shows how strong they are as a club. That result hurt because we’ve done so well in the last two or three years against the bigger teams.

“My opinion on Leeds [the 3-2 loss at Elland Road after the Lions were 2-0 ahead] is that they were exceptional on the night – their speed of movement was unbelievable. They are incredibly well coached and they’d have beaten most teams in the Premier League.

“But you hear about the football Brentford and Fulham are playing and we are playing that level of football at times. It’s about doing it consistently and having that end product.”

Millwall’s heaviest defeat of the season came early on – a 4-0 mauling at Fulham.

But last week they deservedly claimed a 1-1 draw against the third-placed west Londoners.

Shaun Hutchinson’s headed winner at Preston means the chase for the play-offs is definitely on.

“Again when we played Fulham [at Craven Cottage] we caught them on a top night,” said Wallace.

“They didn’t misplace a pass. If you’d told most people who watched that game that we’d be seven points behind them with 13 matches to go then they’d have laughed you out of the door.

“It shows you how well we have done, but we’re not resting on our laurels. The boys have been bang on it in training. We want to do something special. The fans appreciate that we give everything we’ve got – whether we win or lose.

“If you take away the first 10 minutes of the Preston match, we should have won 3-0 or 4-0.”

Wallace has been Millwall’s outstanding attacker this season. But nobody is infallible. He struck the bar with a first-half penalty against Fulham in SE16 that would have put the hosts 2-1 ahead.

But you just know it won’t dent the confidence of one of the bubbliest players in the Lions’ playing ranks.

“Everyone misses them and some in worse ways than me – like a World Cup final,” he responds. “I took it in the right way but unfortunately I got under this one a little bit.

“It always looks worse when the keeper moves early, it looks like you could just have rolled it down the middle of the goal. But these things are never that easy.

“I’ve scored five out of six and I’d have taken that. I’d like to get another one to get it out of my mind and make amends.

“But we took four points from the Fulham and Preston matches, we knew we needed at least that to keep the season alive.

“If you take a step back you have to give credit to Neil [Harris] and the new gaffer [Gary Rowett] – since he has come in we’ve been doing new sessions every day. It’s rare – he’s been here four months and I don’t think anyone has said a bad word about him.

“We’ve competed at the right end of the table in two of the three years we’ve been in the Championship – up against sides of the size of Forest and Sheffield Wednesday.

“It’s a win-win after last season. We wanted to improve.

“We have it about us to run over most teams in the division. Wigan need a result – hopefully they come at us and we catch them the other way.”