By Kiro Evans
NEIL Harris credited his players and their mentality after Millwall secured their Championship safety.
Six wins in eleven games since Harris returned as Lions boss has proved to be enough to rescue a situation that had appeared perilous after February’s 2-0 defeat to Sheffield Wednesday.
The latest victory came against Sunderland this afternoon as Duncan Watmore came off the bench to score five minutes later against his former club, although there may be some debate on if the final touch came off a Black Cats defender.
There was also some uncertainty after the game on if the three points secured mathematical safety but the win does mean Millwall cannot be caught be at least two of the teams below them, even on goal difference, so they are officially safe.
Speaking after the 1-0 win, Harris said: “I couldn’t have envisaged us being in this position seven weeks ago when I took over. [We were] level points with teams in the bottom three so to win six games out of eleven is a great achievement by the players.
“I’m quite demanding, quite loud. Quite eccentric at times around the training pitch. And the players have responded brilliantly.
“My job was to come in and galvanise the football club and get us to safety and I certainly think I’ve done the first one and we’re very close to the second one barring a miracle.
“For me I just want to praise the players. To try and teach a bunch of players to be a really good Millwall team in such a short space of time takes some buy-in from the players.
“Nine of them I gave their debuts to and that’s been a massive help but the lads that weren’t here and the young lads that came [on loan] from Premier League clubs… to learn what I’ve asked them to do and play the way I want them to play – because that’s how Millwall teams have to play – credit to them.”
On the low-quality game itself, which would not have been a treat for any neutral fan to watch, Harris added: “Both teams will be a little disappointed with the way we handled the ball at times. The game didn’t have bundles of quality in it – typical end-of-April game of football for me.
“We came searching for a clean sheet today, make no bones about that. We came with a clean sheet mentality and we wanted to have attacking threat as well, of course we did. But the important thing was to get a clean sheet. We did that, I’m delighted with that. And we just needed a moment to score a goal.
“I’m delighted for the players. You used the word resilience and we had that in abundance. We had desire, we had all the Millwall traits in abundance.”
