Here we go, folks! It’s time for the second season of my Football Manager 2024 series with Millwall.
In case you missed the previous chapter, the Lions came 11th in the Championship in my first season, falling short of the play-offs once again. I’ve been hard at work in the transfer market over the summer, looking to assemble a team that can take that elusive step into the top six.
In today’s chapter, I will take you through all our summer transfer business, along with our first 10 league games in the 2024/2025 Championship season. Can we make a strong start, or will it all come crashing down?
SUMMER TRANSFER WINDOW
TRANSFERS out
| DATE | PLAYER | NEW CLUB | FEE |
| 31 May | Allan Campbell | Luton | Loan End |
| 31 May | Ryan Longman | Hull | Loan End |
| 31 May | Brooke Norton-Cuffy | Arsenal | Loan End |
| 23 June | George Honeyman | Rotherham | £2m (£2.5m) |
| 30 June | Connal Trueman | Rotherham | £125k |
| 30 June | Zian Flemming | Antwerp | £8m |
| 30 June | George Saville | Charlton | Free |
| 1 July | Murray Wallace | Stoke | Free |
| 1 July | Abdul Abdulmalik | Grimsby | Loan (6 months) |
| 8 July | Wes Harding | Birmingham | £1.5m (£2m) |
| 23 July | Danny McNamara | Stoke | £2m |
| 23 August | Casper De Norre | Hull | £2.5m |
After insisting I wouldn’t sell and replace half the squad… I sold and replaced half the squad. Some of these departures were on my terms, but I was also forced into some difficult decisions.
Bartosz Białkowski returned to Poland after playing 135 league matches for Millwall, while fellow goalie Connal Trueman headed north to Rotherham after playing ONE game for the Lions – keeping a clean sheet against Preston. The relegated Millers also bought playmaker George Honeyman off us as they sought an immediate return to the Championship.
We brought in £8million when former striker Zian Flemming completed his permanent move to Antwerp. Club stalwarts George Saville and Murray Wallace both moved on after their contracts expired, and that was as far as I wanted the clearout to go.
Then things went off the rails. Centre-back Wes Harding wanted to return to Birmingham as soon as Wayne Rooney came calling, and so I reluctantly agreed to sell him.
After that, homegrown right-back Danny McNamara doubled down on his desire to run down his contract, effectively forcing me to flog him to Stoke for a cut-price £2million. I’m sure he’ll come back to what he knows one day.
And then I had a huge tiff with Belgian midfielder Casper De Norre, who was angry that I wouldn’t let him rejoin Genk. After a summer of upheaval, I didn’t really want to let Casper go as well… until he requested a transfer and my team leaders told me, “Just let him leave, boss.” And so, with regret, I accepted a £2.5million offer from Hull.
transfers in
| DATE | PLAYER | LAST CLUB | FEE |
| 31 May | Alex Mitchell | Lincoln | Loan End |
| 25 June | Liam Kelly | Motherwell | Free |
| 28 June | Tony Springett | Norwich | Loan (Season) |
| 1 July | Sam Byram | Leeds | Free |
| 1 July | Yuki Soma | Casa Pia | Free |
| 1 July | Mika Biereth | Arsenal | Free |
| 3 July | Charlie Patino | Arsenal | Loan (Season) |
| 5 July | Owen Beck | Liverpool | Loan (Season) |
| 5 July | Liam Scales | Celtic | £275k |
| 9 July | Joel Latibeaudiere | Coventry | £1.3m |
| 14 July | Adam Smith | Bournemouth | Free |
| 31 July | David Button | Reading | £14k |
| 6 August | Andreas Müller | Darmstadt 98 | £500k (£1m) |
My first signing was a new goalkeeper to provide stiffer competition for Matija Šarkić. Ex-Motherwell man Liam Kelly is a consistent shotstopper who was part of the Scotland squad that reached the Semi Finals of Euro 2024 (don’t ask me how). Veteran journeyman David Button will be our new third-choice keeper… just in case.
Liam Scales was our only loanee from last season to return, making his move from Celtic permanent for £275,000. The Irishman was decent at left-back last season but will likely move to the centre as an understudy to Jake Cooper. We also pinched the hard-working Jamaica stopper Joel Latibeaudiere from relegated Coventry as a long-term replacement for the ageing Shaun Hutchinson.
A couple of experienced right-backs arrive on free transfers in Adam Smith (fresh from a decade at Bournemouth) and Sam Byram (previously of… er, Leeds and West Ham). Starting left-back Joe Bryan has a new, younger understudy in Owen Beck – an attack-minded Liverpool loanee.
After missing out on Tony Springett last season, we finally managed to bring the pacey Irish winger (and boyhood Millwall fan) to The Den on loan from Norwich. Our third and final loanee is Charlie Patino – the skilful 20-year-old playmaker who you might remember from my FM22 Arsenal academy series. Charlie’s former Gunners team-mate Mika Biereth joins on a free transfer to provide more depth up front.
The new signing I was most excited about was right-winger Yuki Soma, who signed a three-year deal after leaving Casa Pia in Portugal. In nearly 25 years of playing Championship Manager or Football Manager, I believe Yuki is the first Japanese player I have ever signed (Takehiro Tomiyasu was already at Arsenal at the start of my FM22 series).
Lastly, we added some German efficiency to our midfield. 24-year-old Andreas Müller played five Bundesliga games for Darmstadt last season and has the passing range to be a fine playmaker. (And no, he didn’t score the winning penalty against England at Euro 96!)
SQUAD
So there’s our new-look Millwall squad after the transfer deadline – 23 senior players, only 11 of whom were here at the start of last season. What could go wrong?
To add to the upheaval, we’ve had a change of captain. Hutchinson’s contract was extended for a ninth and (probably) final season, but Latibeaudiere’s arrival means that his days as a regular starter are now over. Cooper has been promoted to captain, and 23-year-old local boy Billy Mitchell will be our new vice-captain.
Another new name in the squad is the aggressive centre-back Alex Mitchell. Sadly, he isn’t Billy’s brother, but he is another Millwall youth product. Alex spent last season on loan at Lincoln in League One and will now provide extra defensive cover.
Incidentally, captain Coops signed a new long-term contract worth nearly £1million a year. Star strikers Aidomo Emakhu and Tom Bradshaw also agreed new deals and big pay rises, though we remain just under our weekly wage budget of £260,000.
Despite nearly firing me after finishing 11th last season, the Millwall board have actually lowered their expectations this season. They would be satisfied with a mid-table finish, and they’re not bothered about the cups either. I guess this could buy me a little more time if, say, we started the season with one win from our first eight league matches.
Though I believe this Millwall squad is stronger than it was last season, the media aren’t convinced. We are projected to finish in 14th place, with promotion odds of 33-1. Maybe they’ll be convinced once they see our pre-season results…
Couldn’t ask for much more than that. Some solid wins, a 5-1 thumping of a very strong Montpellier side, and just one valiant defeat at home to Sean Dyche’s Everton. Mind you, I’m not quite sure how we managed to concede twice to non-league Bromley.
After an encouraging pre-season, I was optimistic for the new Championship campaign. So, how did we kick things off?
AUGUST TO SEPTEMBER 2024: ER…
We started the season with one win from our first eight league matches.
That victory came on the opening day, as we suffocated Birmingham’s attackers before hitting them with an 89th-minute counter-attack. A debut assist from Soma was finished by substitute Duncan Watmore, wiping the smile off Rooney’s face!
Then we went to Hull, who sent our EFL Cup hopes to hell. After Bryan converted a penalty on the stroke of half-time, former loanee Ryan Longman got a goal and an assist late on to complete the Tigers’ comeback. That was followed by two crushing losses to Stoke and Sheffield United – the latter of which was especially disastrous:
Having twice taken the lead early on, Billy Mitchell then gave away TWO penalties (both converted by Vinicius Souza) as our defence fell to pieces… literally. Smith broke his toe before Cooper rolled his ankle, reducing us to 10 men for the final stages of a 5-2 towelling. My heaviest home defeat as Millwall manager so far.
I might have subbed Kelly at half-time. Bottles might have been thrown. There might have been a squad protest about my harsh team talks.
But like the dysfunctional family we are, we calmed down, made up, and got back to the job at hand. After a slow start at Norwich, we fought back to pinch a point through another late Watmore goal. Of course, we then ballsed up our next two games, leaving us down in…
…21st place. Even with lowered expectations, we were still underperforming – and my job would be in serious risk if our form didn’t improve in September.
After a narrow loss to relegated Luton (and their new manager Jack Wilshere), I abandoned the 4-4-2 and switched to a 3-4-3 for our next home game against Southampton. Biereth netted his first Millwall goal to cancel out an early Saints opener… and three minutes later, the young Dane found the net again.
Our net. I love this team.
Anyway, Russell Martin’s ball-hoggers went 3-1 up in the 70th minute after another own goal – a rather less spectacular deflection off Billy Mitchell. But then Coops and Joel each scored from corners to incredibly save us a 3-3 draw! Football, eh?
We finally got back to winning ways three days later at Bristol City, thanks to a brilliant counter-attacking goal set up by Springett and finished by Emakhu. Springett had been by far our most creative spark in this miserable run…
… so of course, City ruined his knee a few minutes later.
Fortunately, they left Emakhu alone. The striker’s injury-time goal in our next home game secured a comeback win over winless Preston, who have somehow had an even worse start than us! Back-to-back victories have lifted us back up to 18th place – seven points clear of the drop, but only six off the play-offs.
Even so, things aren’t looking too great. How have we gone from having one of the tighest defences in the league to one of the leakiest?
Obviously, the high turnover can’t have helped. Our team cohesion is still at a ‘Good’ level, but we haven’t yet found a consistent team, with only eight outfielders starting at least seven of our 11 matches so far. Between the posts, Šarkić has started six matches and Kelly five, but neither has looked convincing.
Personnel-wise, I don’t think there’s much wrong with this team. I probably just need to show a bit more patience with my players, both in terms of squad selection and team talks. I’ve probably shouted at them more often in these last three months than I did in the whole of my first season – and yes, there were probably a few times where I took my criticism too far.
The same goes for tactics. Phoebe here probably sums up the fans’ thoughts pretty well:
I’ve already used a couple of 4-4-2 variants this season – one with a flat midfield, and another with two defensive midfielders. Neither has helped to block the leakage of goals, but I think the 3-4-3 is the way forward.
My biggest headache is how to get the most of the front three, so they can counter-attack more effectively. I do think the Irish lads Emakhu and Springett work well together as inside-forwards, but Bradshaw is very ineffective in the air and is wasting too many chances.
I’m not sure how much longer I can persist with Bradders before I give Biereth a run in the team. Hopefully Mika won’t play any more 40-yarders into his own net…
I think we should leave things there before I start losing my mind! There’ll be another update next week, when I will take you all the way to the January transfer window… provided I’m still in a job by then!
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