It’s time to wrap up the second season of my Millwall save on Football Manager 2024 – and once again, we have the Championship play-offs in our sights.
In the previous chapter, my Lions recovered from a rough start to the 2024/2025 season and clawed themselves back into contention for the top six. And having made two new signings in January, we believe we’re in good shape to sustain a play-off challenge.
Today’s post will take us through the final four months of the campaign. Will it be yet another season of heartache for Millwall fans, or is this finally our time to shine? If nothing else, at least we know our goalkeeper can save penalties with his back turned!
FEBRUARY 2025: HOT AND COLD
We left off the last chapter sitting 11th in the Championship – 10 points off the play-off places, with 17 games left to play. Could our loan signing Daniel Jebbison score the goals we needed to propel ourselves into the top six?
Well, DJ didn’t score in February, but our other January arrival did get off the mark. After left-back Joe Bryan converted an early penalty, new midfielder Matt Crooks headed in his first Millwall goal to give us a 2-0 lead at Ipswich with just 14 minutes gone.
And then it all went horribly, HORRIBLY wrong.
Though we did keep clean sheets in our next three games – grinding out a couple of wins along the way – we then let another lead slip at Southampton. As is now Millwall tradition, we panicked in our own area and gave away a penalty, allowing the Saints to complete a comeback win in the 95th minute. Urgh.
February ended with a bore draw in the north-east against Middlesbrough, but we had at least pulled ourselves a bit closer to the play-off places than we were at the start of the month. One point closer.
Before I continue this season finale, though, it’s time to have a look at how our hottest prospects are developing…
DEVELOPMENT UPDATE
When I took over Millwall nearly two years ago, I inherited a couple of promising talents in academy winger Romain Esse and Irish striker Aidomo Emakhu. We have some of the best coaching staff, and last summer, we moved into new ‘Great’ training facilities at West Kingsdown.
How well do you think these lads have developed since the start of the save?
The answer is… barely, if at all. There are a few promising signs mentally, but many of their physical and technical attributes have actually regressed – not significantly, though it’s still a concern.
I can at least understand why Esse has struggled to kick on. Romain put in some promising performances last season, but he has hardly made any kind of impact on either wing this season, even though he has plenty of opportunities to impress.
My conclusion is that the 19-year-old is sadly out of his depth in the Championship, and that my efforts to play him into form have only compounded his struggles. He probably needs a spell in the Under-21s to build up his confidence again, and then a season-long loan in League One to properly get back on track.
What about Emakhu? As of March 2025, Aidomo has scored 24 Championship goals in nearly two seasons, he consistently trains well, and he has only had one moderate injury to speak of. Yet he hasn’t really flourished either. The only thing I can think of is that I gave him a big contract in the summer to secure his long-term future. That might have got to his head a bit.
So, you could say they’ve both had “too much, too young”, but in different ways.
While I’m here, let me update you on how last season’s youth intake are getting on. Centre-back Seanan Nethercott has been bulking up and making steady progress in our Under-21s squad, as has Alex Sheringham. You haven’t properly met Alex yet, as he didn’t stand out straight away on intake day, but the creative midfielder has already made his league debut – coming on as a sub when we thrashed Cardiff 4-0 in October.
Our other ‘standout’ talents from the class of 2024 haven’t fared quite so well. Midfielder Eric Doidge is still in the Under-18s squad and isn’t developing as much as anticipated. Meanwhile, striker Alexis Dynan got into too many arguments – and not just with referees – and was released in December. He’s now playing non-league football for Barnet.
In terms of this year’s intake, our hottest prospect is Uğur Ersoy, an aggressive but energetic midfielder and winger who already looks decent technically. I might be more excited about Nigerian striker Bala Francis, with his explosive pace and 14 Finishing… if he didn’t also have low ambition and rock-bottom determination.
There’s another exciting newgen I should mention. 17-year-old right-winger Marvin Procter didn’t come from a Millwall youth intake; we poached him in January on a free transfer from National League side Ebbsfleet. Marvin is quick, resolute and hard-working, and improving rapidly in our Under-21s.
Okay, back to the story…
MARCH 2025: TAKEOVER RUMOURS
As we headed into spring, there were reports that Millwall chairman James Berylson was looking to sell the club, less than two years after inheriting it from his late dad.
I have never experienced a tycoon takeover while managing a club on Football Manager, so to potentially have one with Millwall was quite exciting. Then again, if this mystery foreign investor was Elon Musk or a Saudi billionaire, I would probably resign out of principle.
On the pitch, we enjoyed another big win over Cardiff, pushing the Bluebirds closer to relegation. This match saw Jebbison score his first two goals for Millwall… or, should I say, his only two goals for Millwall. The young Canadian wasn’t the goal machine I was hoping for.
At least Tom Bradshaw was back in form, scoring in three straight games. Bradders’ goals saved us a couple of draws and then helped us on our way to a nervy 3-2 home win over Stoke, where some late jitters almost threw his good work away. We were now only four points off 6th place, and starting to believe we could gate-crash those play-offs.
To add to our delight, a Turkish billionaire revealed himself as the mystery tycoon who wanted to buy out Berylson and turn Millwall into English football’s newest big-spending superpo-
Never mind.
The takeover collapse really did take the air out of our balloon. And to make matters worse, goalkeeper Liam Kelly decided to wear teflon gloves against lowly Birmingham. Our five-game unbeaten run was over.
Seven points adrift with six games to play, but don’t lose hope! There is still time to regroup and make one last surge for those play-offs…
APRIL & MAY 2025: AW, DANG IT.
Captain Jake Cooper was the one Millwall player who had been solid all season long. Naturally, it was his horrendously sloppy pass to Bryan that effectively handed promotion-chasing Norwich the second goal in a 2-0 win at The Den.
This is why Millwall don’t play tiki-taka, folks.
And in the very next game, champions-elect Sheffield United absolutely destroyed us – just like they had destroyed everyone else in the Championship this season. United had Cameron Archer and Gustavo Hamer; we had a 67-year-old Adam Smith at right-back. It wasn’t a fair fight.
And with that, our play-off dream was officially over for another year. We couldn’t even take it to the final day this time.
We went through the motions in our remaining fixtures, in which I experimented with tactics and gave some opportunities to Nethercott and Sheringham. Our losing streak extended to six matches, including a total trainwreck at West Brom where we were 2-1 up in the 70th minute and somehow lost 5-2!
We did at least sign off by beating Watford, but I couldn’t wait for that final whistle to blow.
Millwall came home in 13th – our worst Championship finish since 2018/2019. Compared to last season, we picked up 10 fewer points, scored 13 fewer goals, and conceded 10 more. We actually finished closer on points to the bottom three than the top six… which just sums it all up, doesn’t it?
2024/2025 SEASON REVIEW
What can I say? We were bad at the start of the season, and even worse at the end. Our results in between weren’t particularly amazing either, hence we finished 18 points adrift of 6th-placed Middlesbrough.
It’s not hard to figure out what our biggest issue was. Only six teams scored fewer goals than us, and only four Lions found the net more than five times: Bradshaw and Emakhu with 10 goals each, Biereth with 9, and corner king Cooper with 8.
Unsurprisingly, we only had three players record at least five assists as well – and they were all lefties. Tony Springett led the way with 12 (massively overperforming his expected assists), while left-backs Bryan and Owen Beck each got plenty of assists from corners. On the right wing, it was a frustrating season for Yuki Soma, who had over 7 xA but could only register four assists.
Once again, we only had a single player record an average match rating over 7.00. Although our defence basically checked out after February, Coops was the one man I could consistently rely on… for the most part. Loanees Springett and Beck were our next-best performers, and despite making a few sloppy mistakes in goal, Kelly also put in enough blinders (and magical penalty saves) to keep his rating at an acceptable level.
I’m also alarmed that our home record has fallen off a cliff. We only lost three league games at our Den fortress in the whole of last season. This term, we finished the season with three home defeats in a row – and EIGHT home losses in total.
I think a big part of the problem is that my tactics are too cautious. I want this team to be defensively solid and quick on the counter-attack, so I’m not too worried when we don’t have much possession – but like an FM18 tribute act, we’re being overrun in midfield by more technically gifted teams.
I must also hold my hands up again and say that I got my recruitment all wrong last summer. That even includes by ‘best’ signing Joel Latibeaudiere. Joel is a solid defender on paper, but he wants to be a defensive midfielder and gets upset whenever he has to play at centre-back.
Many of my other signings were League One quality at best, such as Andreas Müller and Liam Scales. The same goes for loanees Jebbison and Charlie Patino, who certainly have talent but maybe aren’t ready for regular football at this level.
With Emakhu struggling for consistency, and both Bradshaw and Duncan Watmore in age or injury-related declines, we also lacked any bona-fide Championship quality strikers. I didn’t try to fix that until it was far too late in the January window. Frankly, I screwed up.
Though I’m not sure whether James Berylson is a brave man or a stupid one, the chairman has given me a new contract. I have one last season to take Millwall into the play-offs – and this summer, I need be much bolder in the transfer market.
It’s like what Fairground Attraction said in the 1980s. I have been foolish too many times, but now I’m determined, I’m gonna get it right. Next season has got to be perfect.
It’s fair to say this campaign has left me frustrated – both with myself and with the game. Before continuing this save for a third season, I took a week-long break until FM24’s first major ‘Content Update’ was released last Thursday. This means my next post might not be ready to be published until late next week.
I also don’t want to bore you with yet another mid-table struggle, so if this third season doesn’t go to plan, I’ll look to cut it down to two posts rather than three.
Until next time, thanks for reading.
Fuller FM 
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