Key events
The teams!
Team sheets have been handed in, and these were the names upon them:
Hull: Pandur, Coyle, Egan, Hughes, Giles, Slater, Crooks, Belloumi, Millar, Gelhardt, McBurnie. Subs: Phillips, Hirakawa, Dowell, Lundstram, Joseph, Koumas, Ajayi, Gyabi, McNair.
Millwall: Patterson, Leonard, Crama, Cooper, Sturge, Mazou-Sacko, De Norre, Azeez, Neghli, Ballo, Coburn. Subs: Crocombe, McNamara, Mitchell, Ivanovic, Doughty, Langstaff, Watson, Cundle, Bannan.
Referee: Gavin Ward.
Hello world!
Well, after 46 games the Championship is over. Now for the important bit.
At the end of the regular season Millwall and Hull were separated by precisely 10 points, with the Londoners ending up just a couple away from skipping the playoffs entirely by coming second, and Hull also two away from skipping the playoffs by finishing seventh. That despite Millwall scoring just 64 goals, the fewest in the top eight – and, indeed, not as many as Sheffield United, who finished 13th.
But sure, the playoffs are notoriously about recent form. Here Millwall’s superiority is even more pronounced: three wins and no defeats in their last five put them fourth in the form table, while Hull lost two and won only one of theirs and are 17th. Over the final 10 games of the season Millwall won 18 points, a solid playoff-securing level of achievement, and Hull a midtable 13. Across the entire second half of the season only Southampton – who play the first leg of their playoff semi-final at Middlesbrough tomorrow lunchtime – won more points than Millwall’s 47, while Hull only got 35.
The two games they already played this season aren’t much of a predictive help, both having been won 3-1 by the away team, though Millwall’s victory at the MKM Stadium in March was the more recent by three months (Gavin Ward, who refereed Hull’s win at the Den, is also in charge of this game). So, in short, Millwall could actually be heading for a third season in the top tier of English football, and their first since 1989-90, when they were relegated with a squad that included Teddy Sheringham, Mick McCarthy, Phil Babb and Tony Cascarino.
“We’re in the play-offs with an unbelievable season but there’s still a lot to play for,” their manager, Alex Neil, told BBC Radio London this week. “For this group, what we’ve done, I think we deserve to have something for our efforts come the end of it, not just a pat on the back and a well done. We’re hoping there is still a fairytale ending for us.”
Sergej Jakirovic, the Hull manager, has experience of big two-legged knockout ties from his time with Dinamo Zagreb. “You have to be very clever, or wise, in these games because in the first game, we will not decide anything,” he said. “You have to be better in two games. Who will score more goals or who will concede less, we will see. It’s huge, yes. Who will handle the pressure better? I can say that I can handle pressure better.”
So, a huge match for two teams who have had outstanding seasons. “If you said Millwall would have finished third and we’d have finished sixth at the start of the season, I’m sure people would have laughed at you,” said Hull’s top scorer, Oli McBurnie. But who’ll be laughing after Monday’s second leg?
