The Will Scott column: Millwall’s Hillsborough scare proves old demons have been banished

SATURDAY'S surprisingly close encounter at Hillsborough was hardly a classic.

Sheffield Wednesday's ragtag group of free agents, bargain-bin loanees and academy youngsters gave a good go of it but it felt like once Millwall clicked into gear, there was only going to be one outcome.

And it did take them time to click into gear.

There were signs of it in the first half - Femi Azeez was giving poor Tayo Adaramola (making just his second Championship appearance) a torrid time of it down the right and was firing in dangerous cross after dangerous cross, while Josh Coburn bullied the Owls' centre-back pairing of Gabriel Otegbayo and Cole McGhee (combined age of 41) and came close to putting one of those balls into the back of the net a few times.

70.4 per cent possession yielded ten shots and an xG (expected goals) of 1.57. That should have led to the opener, but a mixture of good goalkeeping and slightly wayward finishing meant it was all square heading into the interval.

Judging just from those stats, most would probably rule that Millwall put in a good shift and were just a bit unlucky.

Yet in the stadium, it felt like the Lions were a bit flat. Aside from the aforementioned Azeez crosses and Alfie Doughty set-pieces, they lacked that danger that has marked recent performances, while at the other end only a couple of important Billy Mitchell interventions denied Sheffield Wednesday two threatening counter attacks.

Still, Max Crocombe had been largely untroubled, the Lions were still in control between both boxes and after a quick word from Neil, Millwall would be well poised to get the goal they needed to wrap up the three points.

It is easier said than done however, and I wonder if the expectations heading into the match contributed to the pedestrian first half.

I can imagine it was difficult for the squad to calibrate how to approach this game.

On the one hand, a quick scan of Wednesday's results and squad would indicate that simply showing up would suffice - minus seven points, eight losses in a row, have not scored since Boxing Day, skipper leaving in January etc...

But, as Neil and Casper De Norre were keen to stress in the days leading up to the match, the Owls are not a pub team. They had come close to getting results in the preceding weeks, and a 4-0 loss to Swansea had obscured that they were well in the match against the likes of Birmingham City, Bristol City and Portsmouth until they conceded late on.

Wednesday were capable of hanging around and making it difficult, as Sheffield Star's Joe Crann told NewsAtDen in the build-up to the game, before poor depth would inevitably lead to them running out of steam shortly after the hour mark.

Crann's words proved prescient. While they benefitted from the aforementioned wayward finishing, they did not let the Lions just do whatever they wanted and showed impressive street smarts for such a young side by wasting time when they had the opportunity.

All those factors meant it was a pretty boring watch for most. Millwall would come up, not quite find the right pass or work it out to Azeez, then either win a corner or have a shot blocked. And repeat.

It sparked contradictory feelings - the Lions should have been ahead but still disappointed. It felt like the dam would burst, not from repeatedly smashing in the door, but from patiently chipping away at the hinges before a defensive mistake or moment of quality.

The game did not follow that script after the restart, suddenly becoming far more of an even contest.

Wednesday edged that fifteen-minute spell after half-time, taking five shots to the Lions' three.

Only two minutes into the second half Olaf Kobacki, who looked bright throughout, did really well to get on the end of Svante Ingelsson's long ball in transition and beat Billy Mitchell before putting it into the side netting. Jamal Lowe also had a volley sail just wide after Jake Cooper miscued a clearance, and suddenly real nerves had set in among the away end.

The build up to the match was dominated by Lions fans fearing another inexplicable collapse against a side at the bottom of the table ( I argued that it felt different this time ) and those fears were coming true - that Millwall had frittered away their opportunity to take the lead and Wednesday would snatch an unlikely win. Would there be a more Millwall result than losing to a side still in the negative?

It seemed even more likely when the Owls broke the game wide open on the hour mark. Charlie McNeill's speculative but well-hit long-range effort was spilt by Max Crocombe and Lowe reacted quickest to tap it in.

Every unwanted record Wednesday seemed no match for Millwall's fundamental DNA, or so we all thought for the following ten minutes.

The Lions did not look like mustering anything, even after Neil brought on Tommy Watson and Macaulay Langstaff. Would it be same old Millwall getting in their own way?

Watson was on hand to dispel that notion, showing sharp feet to put the ball in that McGhee turned into his own net.

"He's a forward-thinking player," Neil said in his post-match press conference. "So he doesn't think with the handbrake on. He wants to go and get the ball and go straight towards their goal and try and damage the opposition as much as he can, and if we can get him into good areas and get him enough service, I think he'll be able to provide that for us.

Two minutes later Langstaff pulled off a remarkably strange-looking finish to put Azeez's cross past Cooper in the Wednesday net.

In a flash, the narrative flipped again.

"Them scoring a goal was the deciding factor in the game," Neil said. "Because I think if we get the first goal, I think it sort of flattens them a little bit.

"We had to respond, and that's something that this group's done since I've been here. They've always had a response in them. They never give up. We're always going to carry a threat. We'll always get an opportunity. It's just whether we can be clinical enough, and thankfully, today, we were when we had those chances."

It all opened up after that. Wednesday had to come forward and Millwall could have scored a few more - Mihailo Ivanovic and Camiel Neghli both came close in the dying stages.

Those chances were ultimately not needed. The Owls did not sniff scoring an equaliser and the Lions got the job done. 2-1, three points in the bag.

On face value, it was not a great day at the office. For all the reasons and stats outlined above, on paper Wednesday should have been run over by a top-six side in Millwall.

Yet football is not played on paper.

"I think everybody thinks you're just going to walk out and pop the ball about," Neil said. "That's never going to be the case at this level.

"Sheffield Wednesday are in a difficult moment just now. They've got a lot of challenges, and I think they're attacking it really well for where they are and what's happened.

"But we've got to worry about ourselves. The simple fact is, we're playing with a lot of expectation, not just coming from ourselves, but certainly externally. We need to get used to handling that. That's what big teams do, and that's what teams do when they're challenging for things.

"I'm actually really pleased with how it panned out in the fact that we got the job done, won the game, but know now that that type of anxiousness is going to come with games and games and games and games. We need to start getting used to it. I'm in a good place in terms of what we need to do next."

At this stage of the season, the most important thing is getting points on the board. Everything else flows down from that.

As Neil pointed out after the match, all that fans will remember is the win, not that they were 30 minutes away from embarrassment.

Should Millwall have played better? Yes, certainly, but that they were able to overturn a deficit given the thematic headwinds is impressive in itself.