Tyrone Henry: A Changing Attitude

The gap between 5th to 9th is so tight, that 0-0 against Everton really stuffed things up! Once again, your defenders deserve all the plaudits to me, and you might need to show your strikers a few videos of Teddy Sheringham or big Steve Morison and say "that's how you score goals". Just hurry up and secure Europe, gotta book the tickets!

2nd January 2024

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Millwall have confirmed four new players arriving at the club, with two transfers amounting to just under £40million.

Austria Wien’s Justin Stach made the switch from Austria to South Bermondsey, England for an initial £15.5million, potentially rising to £30million depending on performance clauses inserted into the deal.

Stach, 18, made his breakthrough into the Austria Wien first-team this season, making four appearances in the Tipico Bundesliga, scoring one goal and winning a Man of the Match award.

Standing at 6’2”, the German centre-back poses a great blockage for attackers, particularly in the air. Tyrone Henry indicated that Stach’s arrival would be one for the first-team immediately after arrival.

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Not long after, Millwall announced the arrival of 17-year-old Irish Under 21 international goalkeeper Joe Cleary from relegation-threatened Nottingham Forest.

Like Stach, Cleary made his first-team breakthrough this season at The City Ground as he forced Caoimhin Kelleher out of the starting spot to make 11 appearances in the Championship, keeping three clean sheets in the process.

Cleary signed for an initial £24million fee which could also rise to £35million depending on various performance clauses.

The youngster is expected to immediately challenge Sam Johnstone for his starting spot in the Millwall team that is currently chasing European football this season. He will take the number 53 shirt for the remainder of the season.

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Millwall also announced the arrivals of two more young players, joining for a combined £1.05millon fee as Linfield’s Stephen Murray and Liverpool’s Bradley Peel joined the club on the first day of the transfer window.

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James: You can forget showing them videos of Steve Morison for finishing tips! Not after this one

No messing about with the arrival of these talented youngsters! A statement of real intent. Certainly looking like another impressive season is on the cards at the moment.

Millwall must be running Nigerian Prince scams online to make those types of signings! I'm more impressed with Cleary than I am with Stach, but they're both good signings regardless. Murray and Peel look like bargains too, so the production line of youth at the club is steadily getting stronger.

31st January 2024

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Deadline Day has seen Greg Taylor come in to replace the outgoing Max Lowe at left-back at The Den.

Millwall have spent big on Justin Stach and Joe Cleary this window and have now added their third first-team player of the window in 26-year-old Taylor who joins for £5.5million from Brighton.

Taylor joined Brighton last season in a £16million fee from Scottish champions Celtic but made only 13 appearances in all competitions after being edged to a starting spot by Tyrell Malacia.

He was transfer listed by Brighton initially for £8million, before lowering their asking price to the £5.5million that Millwall agreed with them.

The search for a left-back came around when Championship outfit Portsmouth activated Max Lowe’s £1.1million release clause after 43 appearances over three years at the Lions.

In other transfer news at The Den, Konstantinos Avraam signed for AC Milan for £200,000 and Tom Leahy joined Nottingham Forest for £20,000.

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Scott: The midseason strengthening has gone really well, in my opinion. Cleary and Stach are here for years to come so I'm very excited to see their arrivals.
James: Spending money all at once, eh? I think it comes as a result of knowing that we have a team capable of handling Premier League seasons, so we can now spend big on one player rather than spreading the cost over a few players at once.

I do like the look of Greg Taylor, but that's a huge loss that Brighton took on the player! There must've been a reason they wanted to get rid of him so badly? Also... you sold a player to AC Milan!?!?

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Our start to the Christmas period began very well with Jed Wallace and Troy Parrott scoring the goals to give us all three points at the AMEX Stadium.

A goalless draw at home against Fulham was followed by Wallace and Parrott winning us the game in another 2-1 victory against Crystal Palace, with the pair forming a great partnership in attack.

We managed to scrape a point against the then-league leaders Man United as Parrott scored again to equalise in the 30th minute at Old Trafford.

However, our end to the year took a downturn as a Boxing Day defeat to West Brom and our final match of 2023 against Liverpool saw us drop an important potential six points at The Den.

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The new year began with an FA Cup tie against League One outfit Tranmere Rovers and we progressed into the Fourth Round with a 3-1 win at Prenton Park.

Our return to Premier League action was a goalless draw, followed up by taking the three points against Leeds with Ryan Fraser scoring the winner at The Den.

Parrott and Kwame Phillips both scored to secure a point against Bournemouth before our FA Cup Fourth Round tie against Rotherham, who we defeated 5-2 mainly down to a Troy Parrott hat-trick.

However, our month finished badly again with a loss to our European qualification rivals Aston Villa despite Joe Shanley scoring his first-ever senior goal.

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We end January in a much weaker position than November, a position lower and now a seven-point gap between us and 7th placed Brighton despite our continued good defensive display.

At the top end of the table, Liverpool have taken a huge lead at the top with a nine-point gap between them and 2nd and 3rd placed Manchester teams. Arsenal, Chelsea, Aston Villa, Brighton and now West Ham are all within ten points of us in the Europe race.

At the bottom, Southampton have tumbled down to the bottom of the table as Norwich and West Brom join them in the relegation zone.

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James: Yeah, it's a strange one to see them go to that length to get rid of him, particularly since he's on a low wage too. I'm not complaining, though! And yeah, Avraam will never be more than a squad player at any of the top tier clubs in my honest opinion, as soon as the opportunity to make some cash out of him, I took it.

Wow, what a job Tyrone has done here. From all but relegated a couple of seasons ago to then the following year take the club to a midtable finish and looking likely to do the same again this season is incredible. Has to be said a lot of that is down to the impressive recruitment strategy it seems Tyrone has followed.

Signing talented home grown players and allowing them to thrive, when in many cases there previous employers hadn't given them a shot has worked out massively. Got to be said I was surprised to see Chong leave so soon after leaving but I guess when a 13M profit is on the table you aren't too disappointed.

With the incomings this offseason, I particularly like Harper, who was someone that interested me when looking through squads at the start of FM21. Still a player I'd like to use myself. This winter Tyrone has gone big with a massive outlay on two young players but both look like they could make an immediate impact and will be well worth that fee, similar to that of Kwame Phillips, who continues to pop up with goals it seems.

A great job and I look forward to seeing more of the same.

p.s. Great choice on pre-season tours

26th March 2024

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Aston Villa have drawn Millwall in the FA Cup Semi-Final after defeating Watford 2-1 at Villa Park in the Quarter-Final.

Viktor Fischer and Goncalo Ramos were the deciding factors in the Watford match despite a comeback attempt from the Championship play-off chasers.

In Millwall’s match, it was a late Jed Wallace finish that sent Tyrone Henry’s team through to Wembley after coming from behind to beat fellow Premier League side Leicester City at The Den.

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Millwall will be only the second Premier League team that Aston Villa have faced in the route to the final four teams, having made their way past League One Blackpool, Championship sides Portsmouth and Watford with their only Premier League tie coming against Fulham.

On the other hand, Millwall have had an arguably tougher run aside from the Third and Fourth Rounds where they coasted past Tranmere Rovers and Rotherham United before facing Premier League rivals Leeds United and Leicester City.

Millwall have the joint-second top scorer in the competition with on-loan striker Troy Parrott scoring four goals in three matches for the Lions.

Aston Villa last won the competition in 1957 when Peter McParland’s brace against Matt Busby’s Manchester United in front of a 99,225-strong crowd.

The closest Millwall have come to winning the competition was back in 2004 when they lost 3-0 to Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United in a match where their current manager Tyrone Henry played the full ninety minutes.

They came close again in 2013 with Henry featuring in the FA Cup Semi-Final against Wigan Athletic which was marred by violence in the Wembley stands between the two sets of fans.

The other Semi-Final features London rivals Chelsea and Arsenal who will play a day before Millwall and Aston Villa on 20th April.

The winner of the competition will enter the 2024/25 UEFA Europa League Group Stages, as Millwall experienced in the old UEFA Cup in the 2004/05 season when they lost out to Hungarian side Ferencváros in the Third Round.

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Seb: Long time, no see the recruitment has been good, but I also think the training regimes and the quality of coaches at the club has had an equally as good effect on performances. The youngsters who seem to be able to play first-team already are the ones that I'm now aiming for as not only does it set us up for the present, but also makes us much better off in the future.

A club who you could argue is known for it's FA Cup runs previous to the Tyrone era. A massive game now in the semi-finals and we could all be dreaming off silverware come the end of the season.

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Our first game after the conclusion of the January transfer window was a nightmare 4-0 destruction at the hands of Chelsea as Havertz, Mount, Odegaard and Pulisic all scored at Stamford Bridge.

We recovered with a 2-1 win against relegation candidates Southampton with Joe Aribo scoring a vital late second goal that would ultimately win us the game despite Danny Ings’ best efforts in injury time.

We made up our goal difference lost to Chelsea earlier in the month with a 4-0 hammering of Leicester with Michael McMahon scoring his first-ever senior goal since joining us for £2,000 from Glenavon. Fraser, Aribo and Lolley all added goals onto the scoresheet.

We ended February with 3 wins out of a possible 4 as Troy Parrott and Ryan Fraser led us to victory against Wolves.

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March began with another start-of-the-month thrashing, mainly at the hands of Erling Haaland who scored all four for Manchester City at the Etihad.

We got through to the FA Cup Quarter-Final thanks to a late own goal from Leeds defender Martin Terrier.

Ben Thompson scored his second goal in two Premier League games, winning all three points against Everton upon our return to league football.

However, we ended up losing another game to 4th placed Arsenal despite Kwame Phillips scoring his third goal of the season.

We came from behind in the FA Cup Quarter-Final against Leicester with Siriki Dembélé coming on as a sub to score the equaliser before a late winner from Jed Wallace, who played the last few minutes as a left-winger.

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With Manchester United’s Carabao Cup victory in early March, the European spots have been cut down to two places in the league table. This means we now sit 11 points behind the European spots, with Aston Villa the closest team to chase.

Liverpool’s lead at the top has been cut from 9 points to 4 points since January. However, they do have a game in hand over 2nd placed Manchester United.

For the remainder of the European spots, the chase is on for Champions League football next season. 6th placed Aston Villa are only a win away from taking Arsenal’s Champions League spot.

At the bottom, Norwich have returned to the bottom of the table with Southampton rising up to be just a win away from safety.

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Seb: Maybe he won't bottle it as he did as a player

Ummm, can you just beat Aston Villa already plz!?!? I think it's safe to say that without your defenders this season, you'd be in a world of hurt. Your attackers need to take responsibility for the gap to the European spots only growing as the months go by, because they're just not consistent enough in front of goal unfortunately. Regardless, the progress is great, but a further push up the table doesn't appear likely just yet without the squad scoring more goals.

Very impressive! Millwall and its supporters will be dreaming of an FA Cup success once again. What a great season this could turn out to be.

Millwall have won the FA Cup for the first time in the club’s history as they defeated London rivals Chelsea at Wembley.

Mahlon Romeo and Axel Tuanzebe were the heroes for the Lions as the defensive duo scored the only goals of the game for their team.

Romeo - who has been with Millwall since the League One days of 2015 - scored in the 21st minute as academy graduate Ronald Mereles played the right-back through to slam home the opener.

Callum Hudson-Odoi scored the equaliser for Chelsea with a header from a Reece James cross into the box on the brink of the half-time whistle.

It only took Millwall five minutes after the break to score the winner as Ryan Fraser assisted Axel Tuanzebe’s header from a free-kick.

The cup is Tyrone Henry’s first piece of silverware as a manager despite leading the club to their 2021 play-off promotion from the Championship.

“This competition has played a great part in Millwall’s history, particularly times when I was playing, but it has also been a curse!” Henry said on-field after the match. “We’ve come so close to winning it in the past, I can’t tell you how happy and proud I am to get my hands on this cup.”

The victory ensures that Millwall will enter next season’s Europa League, with Arsenal joining them in the competition and Aston Villa being reduced to the Europa Conference League. Millwall have therefore stolen Tottenham Hotspur’s European spot after the North London side finished one place ahead of them in the Premier League.

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James: Tuanzebe and McKenna have been sorting us out at the back massively but yeah, it has been a theme for a while now that we need more goals in this side.
Scott: We did it!

A European adventure!! Excellent job to see out yet another very good season. Must be a little extra special after that 4-0 loss to Chelsea, always good to get the final laugh! Congratulations.