Life after Neil Harris is Millwall’s biggest leap into the unknown yet ...Middle East

Jose Mourinho, “thickos” and the fifth departure of Neil Harris, the man who bleeds Millwall. It really is some tale, and it isn’t over yet, with the next chapter a mighty leap into the unknown.

“We do like a soap opera down The Den,” Nick Hart, host of Achtung! Millwall podcast, tells The i Paper.

Quite, so where to start? Well, initially let’s go for Tuesday’s surprise announcement, when Harris confirmed he would be leaving this weekend, but only after overseeing a final home match against Sheffield United on Wednesday – when “Super Neil Harris” chants rang around The Den – as well as the trip to Middlesbrough on Saturday.

“This isn’t an easy decision,” Harris said in a letter to supporters, and to explain how he came to this shock conclusion mid-season we must go back 18 months, when he was actually in charge of Gillingham and Gary Rowett had the reins at Millwall.

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Last summer, Millwall were rocked by the tragic passing of their owner and chairman John Berylson, who died aged 70 when his car overturned and hit a tree in Massachusetts, USA. No other vehicle was involved.

A little over a week later, James Berylson succeeded his late father in the role of Millwall chairman, saying “I am fiercely determined and passionate about continuing his work and building on this foundation”.

James Berylson initially joined the board in 2010 and had been trained up to eventually assume this role from his father. In 2023, however, he was doing so prematurely, under the dark cloud of losing a father and a mentor, one who led Millwall since 2007 and operated under the rare bracket of popular football owner.

“This will mark the start of a new era, one in which we will strive to fulfil Dad’s legacy,” James Berylson added, with a return to English football’s top tier the obvious goal.

Barely a month later, the 2023-24 season began.

With Rowett still in charge, this new era under Berylson junior heralded a vision that would seek to transform Millwall and bring them into the 21st century, an ambition that Hart says sought to mimic the Brentford model – “buy players cheap, polish them up, sell them on”.

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It was not going to change overnight, but with Millwall 15th in the Championship in November 2023, Rowett was dismissed and in came Joe Edwards, the former Everton and Chelsea assistant under Frank Lampard, who was crucially named as head coach and not manager – the first subtle sign of this shift in thinking.

Edwards attempted a new style of play at The Den. “Pass the ball around, play out from the back. The kind of Pep Guardiola style that everyone says is brilliant,” Hart says. “And we were doomed.”

It lasted all of 19 games. Edwards was sacked in February, with Millwall 21st in the Championship, and that was when the SOS call was sent out to Harris.

At this point, not only had Harris already left his role at Gillingham, but he was in fact at Cambridge United, two months into an 18-month deal he had signed with the League One club.

Harris couldn’t turn down the return to Bermondsey, however, with Millwall compensating Cambridge and handing their all-time leading goalscorer an 18-month deal themselves.

Having had two stints as a player, then caretaker manager and then the permanent manager from 2015 to 2019, this time it was as head coach, and initially that subtle difference mattered little. What mattered was that Harris had returned to fulfil a promise and give the supporters their club back.

Harris is Mr Millwall, Hart says, and just plain gets it, so it was not entirely surprising that this reunion bore fruit, with five wins to end the campaign helping them finish 13th, nine points clear of the relegation zone.

“My opinion is that he singlehandedly saved this club from relegation to League One by reverting to traditional Millwall virtues of grind and hard work,” Hart adds. “All hands to the pump.

“This living legend of the club had come back and saved us from relegation.”

A week after the season concluded, Millwall then appointed Steve Gallen as director of football.

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“Steve arrives at the club to provide support to Neil Harris and Millwall as a collective,” the club’s statement read.

“He has a proven track record of establishing a process and platform for identifying and developing talent at all stages during his years at QPR and Charlton, and his main focus at Millwall will be to use his experience to elevate all parts of football operations from the academy to the first-team.”

Millwall had taken a shining to Gallen’s track record as director of football at Charlton Athletic, where he had managed to bring Conor Gallagher and Ian Maatsen on loan from Chelsea, among a string of impressive signings.

The Lions were subsequently active in the summer transfer window, with Spurs centre-back Japhet Tanganga among the arrivals, but what control Harris had over the names coming in was unclear.

He was also facing life under this new model, one that Hart compares to Brentford while using Romain Esse as the prime example, with Millwall’s England Under-20 star linked with a January move to Crystal Palace.

“I think Neil struggles with that,” Hart says. “Your traditional manager wants to play his best side, not lose his talent and hopefully climb the table. I think that’s what lies behind this sad situation, because Harris is a huge figure, probably the biggest in Millwall Football Club’s history.”

No news of a rift surfaced, but Harris’ untimely departure tells its own story, as do his comments after Wednesday’s defeat to Sheffield United, which – on top of admitting Esse will be a Premier League player “soon” – hinted at a potential clash of ideals with Gallen.

“I’m so proud to have represented this club as a player and a leader of the dressing room,” he said. “I know it’s the right time for change for all of us, and the club have been unbelievably supportive with that viewpoint.

“It’s the right time for me, but also, I think it’s right time for the football club to go in a different direction to bring in a manager that maybe has different ideas and that works in a different way to me.

“Look, when I took the job in February, it was a real debate whether I was taking the job. I ultimately took the job because I promised the late John Berylson that I’d come back in the hour of need. I really wanted to work with Jimmy, with his son, and it’s been an absolute privilege to have served both of them and have a brilliant relationship with both.”

Still, Harris was serenaded in his last home match, a reception not entirely guaranteed given it fell less than a week after he was believed to have called some of Millwall’s fans “thickos”.

For context, this came on the weekend after the club had just lost 1-0 at Coventry, a week after a disappointing draw at Oxford United.

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“That’s levels and that’s why you rely on players to have those moments and we lacked that level today,” Harris said. “You miss Romain [Esse], you miss Japhet [Tanganga] and you miss Jake Cooper. Three players that probably get in anybody’s Championship team.

“So just a reminder to people, the thickos, that when you take the three best players out of the team that this is Millwall Football Club.”

Hart is not entirely convinced Harris was referring to the supporters, suggesting it could have been “directed upwards and not downwards” as a dig at the club’s hierarchy – perhaps Gallen in particular.

Either way, it sped up his departure, which though earlier than expected has clearly not ended in utter hostility, given he is easing the transition by overseeing the Boro match too.

Quite where Millwall go from here though is the next conundrum. Hart is quick to reference comments made by Mourinho in October, when the Fenerbahce boss was asked by Sky Sports about which English club he would look to join next.

“Millwall! I just have to cross the bridge from my house… Millwall,” Mourinho said, and this much is true: Jose Mourinho would be a popular choice among The Den faithful, Jose Mourinho at Millwall would be box-office and Jose Mourinho is not going to Millwall.

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One can but dream, but back to reality Wycombe boss Matt Bloomfield has been installed as the favourite to replace Harris.

It ties in with Millwall’s ambitions. Mark Robins, sacked by Coventry City last month, would be an obvious choice were they looking to revert to the old ways, but Bloomfield is 40, making him malleable and in the infancy of his managerial career.

Bloomfield was at Colchester United for less than a year before he accepted the role at Wycombe in February 2023, when he replaced Gareth Ainsworth, and they are currently leading the way in League One, albeit with Birmingham having played two fewer games.

Bloomfield’s approach has proven effective, given Wycombe are 13th for passes, sixth for shots in League One, and yet top for goals in the third tier with 39.

Such numbers and standings are always going to turn heads, and though in a strong position to earn promotion with Wycombe, Bloomfield could soon take the fast track to the Championship himself.

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