&#8216;To do that all at the same time is not easy&#8217; &#8211; How Millwall&#8217;s bold strategy got just the right man to l

WHEN Alex Neil was appointed head coach on December 30 2024, Millwall were thirteenth in the Championship table, eight points off the top six.

There can’t have been many Lions supporters thinking about the play-offs at the turn of the year.

If there were any, they surely dismissed the idea as pure folly after a 1-0 defeat to Gary Rowett’s Oxford United at The Den in Neil’s first game that extended the gap to sixth to ten points.

This would be a transition season, when Neil would embed his way of playing in the squad.

Players such as Camiel Neghli, who was recruited that month, would need time to get up to speed in the Championship after arriving from a completely different football culture in Holland.

How long would it take Tristan Crama to earn a first-team place following his move from Brentford, stepping up to the Championship after two seasons in League One?

In the previous transfer window, Mihailo Ivanovic was, in this country at least, an unknown quantity, signed as a nineteen-year-old from the Serbian top flight.

Femi Azeez, Luke Cundle, Josh Coburn, Macaulay Langstaff, Zak Sturge, Derek Mazou-Sacko - none of them conveyed: immediate promotion challenge incoming.

Go on the online forums and you’ll read plenty of Millwall supporters saying things like they are pinching themselves at the position they are in.

But there is one person who isn’t surprised the Lions are where they are with seven games left in the regular Championship season: Alex Neil.

Neil had tangible success at Hamilton Academical, Norwich City and Sunderland, leading them to promotion to, respectively, the Scottish Premiership, Premier League and Championship. He went close to leading Preston North End into the Championship play-offs.

The only club at which he didn’t have success was Stoke City, where he left after the lowest win percentage of his career: 33.3. (His win percentage with Millwall is 50.7.)

As former Preston player under Neil, Paul Gallagher - who was also part of his coaching staff at Stoke - told NewsAtDen, Neil’s vision for the side and the club’s weren’t aligned, particularly when it came to recruitment.

That was a crucial part of the discussions when Millwall approached Neil to take over from Neil Harris (after David Livermore’s interim spell).

Harris hadn’t been happy with Millwall’s recruitment in the summer after leading them away from relegation danger as one of the form sides in the division. When Ivanovic was signed Harris said he was going to be out injured for eight weeks. (Ivanovic made his debut within three weeks.)

It was Harris exaggeratedly implying a nineteen-year-old novice wasn’t what he needed to get to the next level: a top-six challenge.

Harris wanted to sign the ready-right-now players. And one couldn’t level any blame at him: he knew the kind of player it took to get promoted from League One and to mount a play-off challenge in the Championship.

Millwall wanted to go down a different route, though: recruit young players with potential to increase in value; and bring through players from the academy.

Director of football Steve Gallen and Neil were aligned on that. There would be a five-year plan to get to the Premier League, as was mentioned in last month’s Fan Forum.

But it speaks to Neil’s ability to develop players and create a style of play and game-plans that have full buy-in that Millwall are currently way ahead of schedule.

Neil was tasked with developing raw talent. There are now serious assets on the balance sheet. Based on Ipswich’s bids for him, Femi Azeez is valued at over £15million. Ivanovic, Crama and Coburn aren’t far behind.

Neil is not only in it to help the club develop those assets, he also wants to win. He wouldn’t have agreed to join if he hadn’t believed in the club’s potential, and the vision of Gallen and James Berylson, which really has its origin in the summer of 2024 and the executive changes at the club.

Millwall were second only to leaders Coventry City for points won in 2025. The Lions are third in that table in 2026, behind the resurgent Norwich City and Southampton.

That is a long time being one of the Championship’s best sides. It is especially impressive given it followed the season that included the departure of Gary Rowett, the failed Joe Edwards experiment and a thirteenth-placed finish.

Neil was asked about the club’s current position in the context of the long-term plan when he joined.

“There were so many different facets that needed to align for us to have an opportunity to do it,” Neil exclusively told NewsAtDen . “What I will say is I think the first few years of me going somewhere, probably apart from my time at Stoke, it's always gone really quite well, and there's been a really high ceiling and different things like that. Did I expect it to go well? Yeah, I did. Now to put it into context, what does well look like? Even by those expectations, I think this season’s been very, very good for a lot of different reasons. It's come on a lot.

“When you look at it over that period, obviously, the club wanted to go down a different route in terms of developing players and different things. Joe came in and it, and it didn't quite work. It probably tipped maybe too one way at that point.

“Then obviously Neil came in to save the club and made sure we retained our status in the Championship, which he did unbelievably well.

“Then there was a lot of change in the hierarchy at the club, the model in terms of bringing in younger players, developing them, all that sort of stuff.

“The one thing I will say, to do that all at the same time is not easy to do. To sell players, to reinvest, to develop young players, to develop a style, to keep winning games. So the fact that all different facets of the club have come together and managed to navigate ourselves through that, speaks to some brilliant work across all departments that it's managed to happen.”

There is a typical level of humility in Neil’s words. That was part of what made him seem a perfect fit for the job, what impressed Gallen and Berylson. Humility, but complete belief in his methods and ability.

Neil was the right head coach at the right time to put it all together and spearhead it, even if ex-Lions boss Rowett put an early spanner in the works. If it doesn’t happen this season, and we all desperately hope it does, Neil and the club are doing all the right things to ensure that at some point within the timeframe of that plan it will.