Welcome back to my Football Manager 2024 series with Millwall, where I can assure you that everything is going perfectly to plan!
The Millwall firewall has held pretty firm so far in the 2024/2025 season, conceding just the 21 goals in 10 Championship matches! You can read all about that in Part 4, in case you missed it.
We now pick things up in October 2024, where my Lions are fighting to stay clear of the relegation zone – and I’m battling to save my job. No, I’m definitely not panicking at all!
OCTOBER TO NOVEMBER 2024: FIGHT FOR SURVIVAL
Just a reminder: after a slow start, we went into October having bounced back to win our last two games – leaving us seven points clear of the relegation zone. Could we continue building momentum and propel ourselves further up the table?
No, we couldn’t. Instead, we wet the bed and lost three straight matches without scoring. We weren’t creating any fluid counter-attacks, and though our defence had tightened up a little, it was still not solid enough. There was still one particularly weak link in the chain.
During his first five matches this season, 33-year-old former captain Shaun Hutchinson had missed too many tackles and lost too many headers at crucial moments. This led to him recording match ratings of 6.1, 6.2, 6.6 and 6.1, followed by a 7.0 against Charlton. In Shaun’s sixth match, he had a 6.2 stinker at Plymouth – and that was the last straw.
Hutch had given eight incredible years’ service to the Lions, and I wish it hadn’t ended like this. Sadly, his days as a Championship defender are well and truly over.
I might consider bringing him back to The Den as a coach in the future – just like I have with former club favourites Tony Craig and Shaun Williams, who joined our youth staff this summer. For now, though, it’s so long to Shaun.
Hutch’s former defensive partner Jake Cooper was definitely not finished, though. Our new captain headed in a winner against Ipswich (from a corner, obviously), but another defeat to Middlesbrough brought that inbox message every Football Manager dreads.
We were now only one point clear of the drop. If we lost again at mid-table Cardiff, it would surely spell disaster. You can probably guess what happened next.
That’s right… we smashed them! Aidomo Emakhu banged in his first Millwall hat-trick, thanks to two assists from winger Tony Springett, who rounded off a 4-0 rout late on!
And as you can probably tell, I’d now gone back to the ol’ faithful 4-4-2. Not that it brought us any consistency in our next three games, mind – a Cooper-inspired demolition of Hull coming in between narrow away losses to Derby and Fulham.
Though those wins had given us a bit more wiggle room, we were still too close to the relegation zone for comfort… and nowhere near the play-off picture. What we really needed was another December surge, otherwise I wouldn’t be getting George Michael’s heart for Christmas; I’d be getting the sack instead!
DECEMBER 2024: FESTIVE CHEER
Thankfully, there would be no Whamageddon for me. The festive period got off to an inauspicious start, as my toothless Lions couldn’t even score at home to rock-bottom Sheffield Wednesday – but we then won four of our next five!
Captain Cooper was our hero once again, scoring four corner goals in as many games to give Emakhu a run for the Millwall golden boot! Another long-serving player – utility man Ryan Leonard – enjoyed a winter renaissance in midfield, while Mika Biereth established himself as Aidomo’s new strike partner in place of the misfiring Tom Bradshaw.
Having outclassed Watford in our final match before Christmas, we faced Sheffield Wednesday again on Boxing Day and eventually got the better of them at Hillsborough. Things also got quite nervy against Bristol City, who came from 3-0 behind to peg us back to 3-2, but a late surge powered us over the line.
Having taken 14 points from 6 games, we had now pulled away from relegation danger and to the brink of the top half. We’re coming for you, Middlesbrough!
So, what’s the secret to this sudden resurgence? Honestly, it’s just been a case of going back to basics tactically – and being more patient with my players.
I’ve learnt over my years of playing Football Manager that you can’t keep berating your players if they get stuck in a rut. That will only send you into a death spiral that usually ends in you losing your job. That’s especially true in FM24, where running your club like a dictatorship (e.g. Alex Ferguson or Felix Magath) just won’t work anymore.
Instead, I’ve been trying to keep spirits up and encourage my players – or at least criticise them more gently. Some FMers like to call this game ‘Morale Manager’, but it’s true that a happy team often performs better.
It’s worth noting that you cannot fine your players for poor performances anymore (due to a recent CAS ruling that such fines are actually illegal). I’m now more inclined to chat to my players if they underperform, though I’m careful not to do this too frequently. This can help inspire and encourage them – and yes, it can sometimes increase their Determination or Work Rate too.
I’ve also been making good use of the new ‘targets’ mechanic, to motivate some of my underperforming players to do better in training and/or matches. If they meet the targets I set them, I will in turn promise not to get rid of them in the near future.
This seems to have worked pretty well for me so far. Players get a nice boost in morale when they agree to a training/match rating target, and they appear to work that little bit harder. Okay, so not all of them have met my expectations, but I am seeing enough to believe this can be effective.
JANUARY 2025: CAN WE KICK ON?
Despite our recent good form, I was still eager to add more quality to the squad. To help fund our January transfer business, we finally got rid of Kevin Nisbet. Having scored just one goal (a penalty at that!) in 27 matches since his £2.2million move in July 2023, we flogged him off to Rotherham for just £100,000. Some fantastic business there.
We also sold another striker – Under-21s player Henry Hearn – to Sheff Wed for just over £30,000, and then loaned out a bunch of youngsters. Attention now turned to our mid-season recruits…
Emakhu might have been our leading scorer with nine goals, but his inconsistent form prompted me to bring in another fast striker. That’s where Daniel Jebbison comes into the equation – the Canadian international arriving on loan from runaway Championship leaders Sheffield United.
It was basically a straight choice between Jebbison and Jay Stansfield, who was also available on loan from Fulham. Stansfield had more pedigree at this level (scoring 14 goals for Birmingham last season), but DJ’s better physicality and unpredictability was what swung me towards him. I hope I’ve made the right choice.
I almost brought in Jebbison’s former United team-mate Oli McBurnie – the big Scottish target man who was unsettled at Club Brugge – on deadline day. Unfortunately, we couldn’t generate the funds to complete the transfer, as Duncan Watmore turned down an offer to join Barnsley for £500,000. Cheers, Dunc.
That said, I did manage to sign the experienced Matt Crooks from Middlesbrough for £700,000. The 31-year-old Yorkshireman is brave, hard-working, consistent and loves to get forward, so he’s the ideal player to add some much-needed drive to a stale Millwall midfield.
Our unbeaten league run eventually stretched to nine matches, as the in-form Biereth earned us a couple of scrappy away wins at Preston and Sunderland. Unfortunately, things didn’t go quite so well at home to local rivals Charlton, who quickly cancelled out an early opener from winger Yuki Soma, before we wasted several chances to get back in front.
We cursed more missed opportunities in our next home game, as Jebbison had a full debut to forget against Plymouth. Pilgrims midfielder Callum Wright then drilled in an 80th-minute winner to inflict our first defeat at The Den for nearly three months.
Meanwhile, we endured another early exit from the FA Cup – going down 3-0 at Burnley, who were enduring a torrid Premier League season and hadn’t won since August. Unfortunately, not even our 2ft giant Cooper could stop their big target man Wout Weghorst heading in a couple of corners after Zeki Amdouni’s penalty put us on the back foot.
Otherwise, I can’t complain too much about our recent form. If you’d told me in October that Millwall would be back in the top half – and back in with at least a slim chance of gate-crashing the play-offs – I’d have snapped your arm off!
That said, I’m not entirely happy. For one thing, we have already given away seven penalties in all competitions this season. Despite our reputation, we are not a dirty team at all – we’re 4th in tackles won, 13th in fouls conceded, and only 18th in yellow cards awarded (no red cards yet). It’s honestly hard to understand why that’s happening.
And for a team that claims to be good at set-pieces, we have already conceded 11 goals from corners – the worst in the league. Yes, we’ve scored 12 at the other end, but defensive marking from corners is a real issue for us. Though this has been acknowledged by SI as something that needs to be improved in a future patch, I won’t use that as an excuse.
In terms of individuals, Cooper has been our top performer by far, with an average rating of 7.12. Left-sided loanees Owen Beck (6.98) and Springett (6.89) have also impressed me with their creativity and crossing, but other players have left me scratching my head.
Take our vice-captain Billy Mitchell. On paper, he should be one of the most exciting young midfielders in the Championship – he certainly has good passing range for a playmaker – but his match ratings rarely go above average. I’ve tried Billy as a DLP, BBM, CM Punk, BWM, BMW, HGV, LDV Vans Trophy… okay, my point is I’m not getting the best out of him and I’m flush out of ideas.
It’s a similar story with another midfielder. Andreas Müller has a typically German work ethic, and his training performances have been consistently great, but his match performances have been consistently… not great. Right now, he’s a bigger Deutsche disaster than Andreas Voglsammer, who scored a whopping three goals in 42 games for Millwall two seasons ago!
Further afield, Bradshaw has scored just four goals in 23 games – and the 32-year-old might be the next Lions stalwart to go, especially with Biereth now fulfilling his potential. One youngster who isn’t fulfilling his potential is winger Romain Esse, who got a goal and an assist against Watford in December, and has produced nothing else in his other 24 appearances this term.
Have I given Romain too much football too soon? Maybe that’s something to discuss next time…
I’ll be back next week with the 2024/2025 season finale. Can we hit form late in the season and finally crack the play-offs – or will it be yet another year of frustration for the Lions fans?
Fuller FM 
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