Millwall's Playoff Curse Continues with Another Heartbreak
Millwall’s playoff curse tightens its grip. Again.
For the fourth time, they reached the Championship’s brink, stared at the Premier League’s open door – and watched it slam shut in their faces at the semi-final stage. 1991, 1994, 2002, and now this. This one will sting longest of all.
Alex Neil’s side had finished 10 points clear of Hull over the season, missing automatic promotion by a whisker on the final day. They came into the night as heavy favourites, a club and a fanbase ready for Wembley. Instead, under the Den’s floodlights, it was Hull’s bench that produced the match-winners and Millwall that unravelled.
Mohamed Belloumi lit the fuse. Joe Gelhardt twisted the knife.
A night set up for Millwall
Neil knows his way around the playoffs. He took Norwich up in 2015, helped drag Sunderland back to the Championship in 2022 and spoke openly of making this a night to remember. The Den responded on cue. The first booming rendition of “No one likes us, we don’t care” rolled around as the teams emerged, the place crackling with the sense that this time, finally, it might be different.
The backdrop was already raw. The first leg had left Millwall simmering, Ryan Leonard’s disallowed goal a grievance Neil felt should have gone their way. At full-time that night, police had to separate the two sets of supporters. This second leg carried that edge from the start.
Hull’s travelling fans – some of them rewarded with free T-shirts from chair Acun Ilicali for making the long trip to southeast London – were vastly outnumbered but not out-sung. They had come to spoil the script. Sergej Jakirovic had given them reason to believe.
The Hull head coach, operating on one of the division’s leaner budgets, has been upsetting the odds all season. Here, he did it again before a ball was kicked. He switched to a back five, a bold tactical tweak that immediately knocked Millwall out of their stride.
Hull seize the initiative
The pattern was set early. Hull, who had already won 3-1 at the Den in December, settled first. Charlie Hughes forced Anthony Patterson into the night’s first save from a free-kick in the 10th minute, a reminder that the sixth-placed side had not come to play the supporting role.
Millwall needed time to breathe. Once they did, they began to punch back.
Thierno Ballo’s header was hooked off the line by Kyle Joseph, a desperate, scrambling clearance that silenced the home roar in mid-air. Ivor Pandur then had to spring to his near post to beat away a fierce drive from Femi Azeez.
Azeez, who climbed from the eighth tier with Northwood to become one of Millwall’s most dangerous forwards, again looked their brightest spark. Every time he picked up the ball, Hull’s back line shuffled a little quicker, just in case.
But Hull never disappeared. They rode the storm and then pushed back. John Egan went close with a header from a free-kick. Oli McBurnie tested Patterson from a fizzing Ryan Giles delivery, the goalkeeper needing sharp hands to keep the tie level.
Five minutes before half-time, Millwall screamed for a penalty. Casper De Norre’s cross struck Hughes on the arm, the Den erupting in expectation. Referee Sam Barrott took one look and waved it away, the defender’s arm tight by his side. The protests lingered. The decision did not.
Hull’s night took a worrying turn when Joseph limped off with an ugly-looking ankle injury. Sympathy from the home end was in short supply; he was booed as he was helped away by the physio. It would prove a pivotal moment for very different reasons.
The game slips away
Again, Hull came out sharper after the interval. Regan Slater slipped McBurnie through and, for a heartbeat, it looked certain. Tristan Crama had other ideas, somehow scrambling back to clear off the line and keep Millwall alive.
The reprieve did not wake them up. There was plenty of effort, plenty of noise, but little incision. Millwall huffed, puffed, and ran into a yellow-and-black wall.
Neil rolled his dice. Mihailo Ivanovic came on and the hosts switched to 4-4-2. Experience followed from the bench in Alfie Doughty and Barry Bannon, the manager throwing everything at the tie.
It made no difference.
The pressure, when it finally told, came from the other end. Joseph’s replacement, Belloumi, had been stretching Millwall down the left, jinking into pockets, turning defenders. When the ball broke to him on the edge of the area, he didn’t hesitate.
One touch. A curl. The shot bent away from Patterson, clipped the far post and dropped in. A stunning finish. The away end exploded, a blur of limbs and disbelief. Hull, sixth in the table, now led the favourites in their own fortress.
Millwall staggered.
Bannon, brought on to calm and create, almost handed Hull a second with a loose pass that fell straight to Slater. The midfielder couldn’t punish him, but the warning was clear: Millwall were losing both the tie and their composure.
They still had moments. Ivanovic climbed to meet a cross and headed over when he needed to hit the target. That was as close as they came to turning the tide.
Gelhardt seals it, Hull dream on
The final blow arrived with a cruel mix of precision and error. Belloumi again found space on the left and whipped in a cross. Gelhardt, just on the pitch, met it with his first touch. It wasn’t the cleanest connection, but it was enough.
Patterson got to it, but not well enough. The ball slipped through his fingers and dribbled over the line in slow motion, dragging Millwall’s season with it. Gelhardt wheeled away. Hull’s bench surged towards the touchline. The Den fell flat.
There was no late surge, no heroic comeback. Just the familiar weight of another semi-final slipping away.
Hull, meanwhile, step into history. They become the first team since Frank Lampard’s Derby in 2019 to finish sixth and reach the playoff final. On this evidence, they will not arrive at Wembley to make up the numbers. Whoever they face, they will back themselves to rip up the odds again.
For Millwall, the only thin consolation is the likelihood of renewing their old rivalry with West Ham next season, a fixture not seen since 2012. For a club that came so close to going up automatically, that is a bitter trade-off.
The Premier League remains out of reach. The curse lives on. How many more times can this club take getting this close before something finally breaks?
