Millwall boss feels pride despite Championship play-off dreams ending at Burnley

Alex Neil expressed a deep sense of pride in his Millwall players after they fell agonisingly short of securing a Championship play-off spot on the final day of the season.

The Lions were beaten 3-1 by Burnley at Turf Moor, and although the hosts hit the 100-point mark, they were denied the title by a dramatic late winner from Leeds United at Plymouth.

The atmosphere inside Turf Moor was electric. With Scott Parker’s Burnley side having already secured promotion to the Premier League, the stage was set for a thrilling finale. Millwall’s travelling supporters created a wall of noise, willing their team toward a first play-off appearance since 2002.

The game burst into life from the outset, with both teams showing attacking intent. Burnley looked the more threatening early on, but it was Millwall who struck first.

In the 11th minute, George Honeyman’s precise cross was met by Mihailo Ivanovic, who fired home his 12th league goal of the campaign.

Millwall’s lead was wiped out almost immediately, as Josh Brownhill capitalised on some poor defending to equalise straight from the restart.

Lions head coach Neil said. “It’s one of them ones where we know coming here it’s going to be a tough game. They are playing for 100 points, playing for the title, playing for clean sheet records — it was like coming to a carnival.

“From our perspective, to try and win the game is very difficult. No-one so far has managed to do that here.

“The disappointing thing from our point of view is we score the first goal, then go and concede straight away — which is a cardinal sin in any game.”

Josh Coburn had a chance to put Millwall back in front before the break but he was unable to convert Tristen Crama’s cross, instead the ball hit the post and bounced away.

“We then get an unbelievable opportunity to go 2-1 up just before half-time, but we don’t capitalise on that big opportunity, then at the start of the second half, there’s one where Femi gets down the side on his left foot — that was potentially a good opportunity to get a goal,” said Neil.

“We don’t manage to capitalise then. I thought from 45 to 75 minutes, they stepped it up and we found it really hard to stay with them. At that point, you could see our lads were running on empty. We tried to freshen it up a bit.

“The manner of the goals we conceded was so frustrating for us.

“The first one is a clean ball we should do better with, then they have two ricochets which land at their feet.

“The second goal is a deadball free-kick and we get done in behind, and the third one is a free-kick — George gambles and leaves the side open a bit too much that he should probably be covering, and the ball ends up in the far corner.”

“When you take the goals individually, they are poor goals for us to concede. But if you take that aside and you look at the bigger picture — look at what the lads have churned out for the last god knows how many weeks, how they’ve gone about their work, how we’ve played in those games and the big wins we’ve got — pride is definitely the overwhelming emotion we’ve got for the players.”

Plymouth were ahead against Leeds at half time – a message that the Millwall bench was aware of.

“We took it to the last 45 minutes of the season — that’s what we’ve done. It was one each, the next goal was going to decide the game and I said that to the players,” Neil revealed.

“Equally, I knew — and I said this to the players — because we got the message that Leeds were losing, and I was thinking that’s the last thing we need because Burnley were going for the title. I knew that next 20 minutes was going to be important, and what I was hoping is we can weather that storm and nick a chance later on in the game and it goes in your favour.

“And we did get a chance before they scored the second goal but unfortunately we didn’t manage to capitalise on it — and those moments ultimately seal big games.”