Match Day Thread Letdown Merchants v Millwall

  • Please bear with us on the new site integration and fixing any known bugs over the coming days. If you can not log in please try resetting your password and check your spam box. If you have tried these steps and are still struggling email [email protected] with your username/registered email address
  • Log in now to remove adverts - no adverts at all to registered members!
Royston Vasey said:
Yep
Click to expand...

So supporters are not buying the party line that we were the better team and just got mugged at a couple of set pieces.

Bowyer's reputation for honesty on the footballing side of things has been very good so far. But I guess with his success record that has not been too difficult. Now, for the first time since he took over, we have a proper slump in form - three defeats from our last four games, and a very bitter pill to swallow yesterday.

Is LB going to begin to depart from reality in a manner more like Gobbo, or even Les Reed?
Blimey, I hope not.
 
It strikes me that maybe we make too much of this Millwall business.

Putting our head-to-head record aside, Charlton have been (for most of their history) a bigger and better Club. For decades in the past we didn't play Millwall, simply because we were in a higher league. For many more seasons than them being in a higher league than us.
We've won the FA Cup, and been in the top division for over 20 seasons in all I believe.
That's a much better historical record than theirs.

Yet each time a season comes around when both teams are in the same league, we build up the Millwall fixtures as if they really are more important than anything else. This very thread used to be called our "Cup Final" if I recall.
This kind of hysteria plays right into their hands. No wonder they laugh at us.
Maybe even Lee Bowyer got it wrong this season, banging on at his players about the importance of this match, until the occasion paralysed them.
If our team could out play and defeat Sunderland at Wembley, why the f**k did they freeze at the Den?

Later this season, if we just treated Millwall coming to the Valley as though it was any other struggling Club who we ought to be beating, we would probably get the three points and move on.
We've created this monkey for our own backs.
We won't beat Millwall until we start playing the team, not the bleeding occasion.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ponders Revisited and ForestHillBilly
lardiman said:
It strikes me that maybe we make too much of this Millwall business.

Putting our head-to-head record aside, Charlton have been (for most of their history) a bigger and better Club. For decades in the past we didn't play Millwall, simply because we were in a higher league. For many more seasons than them being in a higher league than us.
We've won the FA Cup, and been in the top division for over 20 seasons in all I believe.
That's a much better historical record than theirs.

Yet each time a season comes around when both teams are in the same league, we build up the Millwall fixtures as if they really are more important than anything else. This very thread used to be called our "Cup Final" if I recall.
This kind of hysteria plays right into their hands. No wonder they laugh at us.
Maybe even Lee Bowyer got it wrong this season, banging on at his players about the importance of this match, until the occasion paralysed them.
If our team could out play and defeat Sunderland at Wembley, why the f**k did they freeze at the Den?

Later this season, if we just treated Millwall coming to the Valley as though it was any other struggling Club who we ought to be beating, we would probably get the three points and move on.
We've created this monkey for our own backs.
We won't beat Millwall until we start playing the team, not the bleeding occasion.
Click to expand...
<applause> Well said
 
  • Like
Reactions: lardiman
lardiman said:
It strikes me that maybe we make too much of this Millwall business.

Putting our head-to-head record aside, Charlton have been (for most of their history) a bigger and better Club. For decades in the past we didn't play Millwall, simply because we were in a higher league. For many more seasons than them being in a higher league than us.
We've won the FA Cup, and been in the top division for over 20 seasons in all I believe.
That's a much better historical record than theirs.

Yet each time a season comes around when both teams are in the same league, we build up the Millwall fixtures as if they really are more important than anything else. This very thread used to be called our "Cup Final" if I recall.
This kind of hysteria plays right into their hands. No wonder they laugh at us.
Maybe even Lee Bowyer got it wrong this season, banging on at his players about the importance of this match, until the occasion paralysed them.
If our team could out play and defeat Sunderland at Wembley, why the f**k did they freeze at the Den?

Later this season, if we just treated Millwall coming to the Valley as though it was any other struggling Club who we ought to be beating, we would probably get the three points and move on.
We've created this monkey for our own backs.
We won't beat Millwall until we start playing the team, not the bleeding occasion.
Click to expand...

I've forgotten who you are already :emoticon-0102-bigsm
 
TC (Lovely Geezer) said:
I've forgotten who you are already :emoticon-0102-bigsm
Click to expand...

My point exactly.

The very last thing any Millwall fan or manager or player will do, is build up the opposition in their mind until the occasion overwhelms them.
Doesn't matter if it's Charlton, or West Ham, or Manchester United in the FA Cup Final. They play the team, exploit their weaknesses if they can, and give the game everything they have. If they get a whipping, so what. They move on.

Here at the Valley now our ambition is to finish 21st place this season, the Club is obsessed with pretending we're all a big happy family again, and our biggest games are not against the promotion contenders; Leeds, Swansea, West Brom. But against Millwall - games where we've defeated ourselves before we even walk out onto the pitch.

Millwall don't have any magical power over us. Our own heads aren't right.
In Lee Bowyer's case I'll put that down to inexperience as a manager. He has a chance to put it right at the Valley later this season.

But if we have nothing else left to play for by then, and we build that game up out of all proportion for weeks beforehand, it will end the same way.
We make a great noise about how much we hate them, but in reality we give them far, far too much respect.
Unless that stops, we'll never beat them.
 
Last edited:
It's a shame we got nothing as following the updates, it felt as if we grew into that game and were starting to look as if we would go on and win it. I', not going to take aim at Bowyer as I don't doubt he know a lot more about football management than me, but it did sound like a Chris Powell momento where we took our foot off the accelerator, sat back and handed them the chance to come at us. I guess if we'd scored a breakaway winner we'd all be singing Bowyer's praises this week, but sadly we ended up dropping all three points and were'nt even trying to get them at the end.
Still, to be honest, the january window is looming, and Bowyer is a standout manager for us whose contract runs out in may and there seems no desire on the part of the club to offer hime something more, and that is a bigger problem than a loss at the New Den.
 
  • Like
Reactions: User deleted as requested
lardiman said:
It strikes me that maybe we make too much of this Millwall business.

Putting our head-to-head record aside, Charlton have been (for most of their history) a bigger and better Club. For decades in the past we didn't play Millwall, simply because we were in a higher league. For many more seasons than them being in a higher league than us.
We've won the FA Cup, and been in the top division for over 20 seasons in all I believe.
That's a much better historical record than theirs.

Yet each time a season comes around when both teams are in the same league, we build up the Millwall fixtures as if they really are more important than anything else. This very thread used to be called our "Cup Final" if I recall.
This kind of hysteria plays right into their hands. No wonder they laugh at us.
Maybe even Lee Bowyer got it wrong this season, banging on at his players about the importance of this match, until the occasion paralysed them.
If our team could out play and defeat Sunderland at Wembley, why the f**k did they freeze at the Den?

Later this season, if we just treated Millwall coming to the Valley as though it was any other struggling Club who we ought to be beating, we would probably get the three points and move on.
We've created this monkey for our own backs.
We won't beat Millwall until we start playing the team, not the bleeding occasion.
Click to expand...
You are partly right that Charlton fans have built up a rivalry and hatred of all things Millwall where as Millwall fans only have Charlton on the radar when a game is coming up and look forwards to bagging a few points, as a lot of Millwall fans live in what used to be a Charlton catchment area on the day we are up for it for bragging rights, once its over we look forward to the next game.
The only reason a Millwall v Charlton game is bigger than a Millwall v QPR or Brentford game is the close proximity, we hate West Ham and can't stand Palace, we don't mind you, apart from when we play you.<cheers>
 
Ringo Lion said:
You are partly right that Charlton fans have built up a rivalry and hatred of all things Millwall where as Millwall fans only have Charlton on the radar when a game is coming up and look forwards to bagging a few points, as a lot of Millwall fans live in what used to be a Charlton catchment area on the day we are up for it for bragging rights, once its over we look forward to the next game.
The only reason a Millwall v Charlton game is bigger than a Millwall v QPR or Brentford game is the close proximity, we hate West Ham and can't stand Palace, we don't mind you, apart from when we play you.<cheers>
Click to expand...

Always find the Millwall games at the Den hostile but generally good humoured. Your fans get younger & spottier every year.
 
Ken Shabby said:
It's a shame we got nothing as following the updates, it felt as if we grew into that game and were starting to look as if we would go on and win it. I', not going to take aim at Bowyer as I don't doubt he know a lot more about football management than me, but it did sound like a Chris Powell momento where we took our foot off the accelerator, sat back and handed them the chance to come at us. I guess if we'd scored a breakaway winner we'd all be singing Bowyer's praises this week, but sadly we ended up dropping all three points and were'nt even trying to get them at the end.
Still, to be honest, the january window is looming, and Bowyer is a standout manager for us whose contract runs out in may and there seems no desire on the part of the club to offer hime something more, and that is a bigger problem than a loss at the New Den.
Click to expand...

When it went 1-1 we could have gone on to win the game easily. That was one of the things that was so disappointing. Millwall used up a lot of energy in the opening 25 mins, and individually were not that good. Bringing on Lapslie for a striker sent out a very obvious message to everyone inside the stadium.
 
Ringo Lion said:
You are partly right that Charlton fans have built up a rivalry and hatred of all things Millwall where as Millwall fans only have Charlton on the radar when a game is coming up and look forwards to bagging a few points, as a lot of Millwall fans live in what used to be a Charlton catchment area on the day we are up for it for bragging rights, once its over we look forward to the next game.
The only reason a Millwall v Charlton game is bigger than a Millwall v QPR or Brentford game is the close proximity, we hate West Ham and can't stand Palace, we don't mind you, apart from when we play you.<cheers>
Click to expand...

Everybody hates Palarse Ringo..... even Welling United <ok>
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ringo Lion
Royston Vasey said:
When it went 1-1 we could have gone on to win the game easily. That was one of the things that was so disappointing. Millwall used up a lot of energy in the opening 25 mins, and individually were not that good. Bringing on Lapslie for a striker sent out a very obvious message to everyone inside the stadium.
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back