“Welcome to the Lions’ Den, temptation’s on his way. Welcome to the house of fun!”
And you thought there was already enough madness on Fuller FM!
Football Manager 2024 has been in beta – no, sorry, ‘Early Access’ – for a week-and-a-half now. For my first save on FM24, I will be taking charge of Millwall in the EFL Championship, with the aim of leading this unfashionable South London club into the Premier League. No one will like me, but I won’t care!
In this opening chapter, I will have a first look at the Millwall mob I have inherited from Gary Rowett, and our targets for the 2023/2024 season. But first, let me tell you a story…
INTRODUCTION
Millwall winger Paul Ifill plays in my first live football match. (12-year-old Christopher not pictured.)
Though I’ve been a diehard Arsenal fan since the age of 8, I also started to develop a soft spot for Millwall when I was 12. It was October 2002, and my class made the 15-mile trip south from Romford (in north-east London) to visit the club’s stadium in Bermondsey (in the south-east). Coincidentally, my late paternal grandad was born in Bermondsey.
We were shown around The Den, which was then one of the newest professional football stadiums in the country. Incidentally, our tour guide was Millwall Lionesses striker Pru Buckley, who won the Women’s FA Cup in 1997 and was capped three times for England. After the tour, she very kindly gave me my first autograph.
The tour was such a success that my class was invited back a few weeks later to watch the Lions play a league match. This would be my first ever live football match – Millwall vs Leicester City, on 16 November 2002.
Leicester took a very early 2-0 lead, but the match turned when their striker Brian Deane was sent off for two bookings. Steven Reid pulled a goal back for the hosts, before future Millwall player-manager Dennis Wise equalised against his former club in the 81st minute. There was more drama late on when Leicester won a penalty, but Muzzy Izzet’s effort was saved by Tony Warner, earning the Lions a 2-2 draw.
That first live game was one of the best experiences of my childhood, even if I missed out on watching Thierry Henry destroy the Spuds defence by himself in the North London derby. While Arsenal will always be my main team, Millwall have had a place in my heart since that day over two decades ago.
And when it comes to FM, Millwall have been my go-to team for much of the past 20 years. My first save with them was on Championship Manager 00/01, when an on-loan James Beattie fired the Lions to promotion from Division 2. Sadly, Division 1 proved much tougher, and I gave up during the second season.
Things went even better on Championship Manager 4, set in the 2002/2003 season when I fell in love with Millwall. My Lions won the Division 1 title AND the FA Cup in the first season, then finished 4th in the Premier League a year later. Richard Sadlier and Neil Harris scored over 100 goals between them, while winger Tijjani Babangida and centre-back Iván Hurtado were two of my greatest free transfers ever.
I started several Millwall saves from Football Manager 2005 onwards, though few of them ever made it past the first or second seasons. My longest effort was on FM11, where we stalled in the top half of the Championship for 4-and-a-half years. That was despite centre-backs Paul Robinson and Tamika Mkandawire each heading in more corner goals than I could count!
My most recent long-term save with Millwall was on FM17. After nearly getting sacked at the end of my first season, we won promotion from League One (I love you, Chris Long), but still couldn’t make it out of the Championship. I abandoned that save early in season 5.
Since then, I’ve managed Millwall on the FM22 demo, and on a brief offline save on FM23. But as this Football Manager era comes towards an end, I feel like it’s the right time to lead the Lions once more – hopefully into the Premier League.
STARTING OUT
Who’s a pretty boy, then? No, serious question, because it sure isn’t me! (By the way, you won’t be seeing any other game-generated faces on my FM24 posts this year.)
I’ve loaded 28 leagues from 15 nations, giving me around 80,000 players in the database. I’m also using the Original game mode with the first transfer window turned off – so the starting squads are up-to-date, and there will be no more transfers until January.
Gary Rowett was still the Millwall manager on this database, as he left the club literally ONE DAY before the FM24 beta was released. Er… sorry for getting you sacked again so soon, Gary!
Anyway, in this universe, I have taken over the reins after Rowett was blamed for a final-day collapse against Blackburn Rovers that cost them a Championship play-off place. It’s been a summer of upheaval at The Den, with American businessman James Berylson being appointed as club chairman following the tragic death of his father John.
This is the squad I’ve inherited from the Rowett regime. I’m stuck with this lot until the new year, but everyone will get a chance to prove their worth. (Er… maybe not you, Connal Trueman. I’m not sure what you’re doing here.)
Two of the first names on my teamsheet will be captain Shaun Hutchinson and vice-skipper Jake Cooper – both strong, brave and long-serving centre-backs who can be imposing from set-pieces. Hutch has been with us since 2016 but is slowing down, so we’ll need to find a long-term replacement soon. Coops is in his peak years, though, and the 201cm (6ft 7in) giant should remain an integral part of the team for some time.
Combative midfielder Allan Campbell was promoted from the Championship with Luton last season and will hope to repeat the feat while on loan with us. He’s a hard-working Scottish terrier and a wind-up merchant, so expect plenty of fireworks – and even more cards!
Our most talented player is undoubtedly Zian Flemming – a skilful attacking midfielder who scored 15 goals last season. My assistant rates the Dutchman as a ‘Decent Premier League player’, so it’s only a matter of time before he’s playing at a higher level – hopefully with us. Also watch out for the prolific Tom Bradshaw, who netted 17 times last term.
Millwall have a decent track record for developing youngsters, and we’ve got a few homegrown talents in the ranks. The best of them is energetic midfielder and EastEnders star Billy Mitchell, who has already played over 100 games for his boyhood club at the age of 22.
Hoping to follow in Billy’s footsteps is Romain Esse – the 18-year-old left-footed winger who loves a few tricks. Also watch out for Irish Under-21s international Aidomo Emakhu, who’s a quick and ambitious forward with plenty of room to grow.
This is a very physical Millwall team, possessing some of the league’s highest ratings in terms of Natural Fitness and Strength. We’re pretty determined and full of energy too, faring very well in most mental attributes, though technique is somewhat lacking.
That’s certainly true in midfield. While we have no end of ball-winners or holding midfielders, we don’t have much creativity in that area of the pitch. George Honeyman would provide most of that, but he’s out until at least October with a torn thigh muscle.
I’ll dive deeper into my tactics in my next post, but I’m likely to stick with the direct, high-pressing, counter-attacking style of football that Millwall fans have come to expect. Some snobs might call it ‘Brexit football’; I call it ‘playing to our strengths’.
Rowett liked a 4-2-3-1 formation, though I’ll probably go for a more defensively solid 4-3-3 or experiment with a 3-man defence. Maybe we can make some use out of wide centre-backs and inverted full-backs…
TARGETS & PRE-SEASON
Millwall have a three-year plan to get into the Premier League, which means we should be targeting promotion by the end of the 2025/2026 season. That’s my main aim for this series – if we can’t get promoted within three seasons, it’s mission failed as far as I’m concerned. No pressure, Christopher!
As far as this campaign goes, we’re simply focusing on cracking the top six and reaching the Championship play-offs. Having finished 8th, 11th, 9th and then 8th again during Rowett’s four seasons, it’s about time we made progress.
The Championship season preview has us down in 14th place, with odds of 33-1 to us on being promoted. That doesn’t sound too promising… but bear in mind we’ve been given the same odds as Coventry, who were only a few penalties away from stealing Luton’s Premier League place!
That said, making a slow start in such a competitive league could put my position in early jeopardy, so a good run in the EFL Cup might help with job security early on. Thankfully, we’ve been drawn at home to League Two side AFC Wimbledon in Round 1, so a win there should set us up nicely.
Before all that, though, we have to warm ourselves up in pre-season. This consists of a three-match tour of Switzerland, another away game against Bradford (now managed by Lions legend Neil Harris), plus home games against Brentford and Saarbrücken. It’s not the toughest schedule, so I’m sure our defence will hold up just fine…
Erm… let’s call this a ‘work in progress’.
And that will do it for this series introduction! The plan is to publish two or three updates per season, starting with Part 2 next week, when I’ll recap the first half of the Championship season. Hopefully, the Millwall board won’t have sacked me by then!
If you’re looking forward to this series, you can hit the ‘Follow’ button at the bottom of the page, which will let you know when a new post goes live. You can also find me on Twitter, Threads and BlueSky.
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