Harris putting faith in youth

Millwall are potentially 90 minutes away from securing an immediate return to the Championship. Ahead of the League One play-off final, Nick Lustig speaks to the Lions’ chief executive Andy Ambler about Neil Harris’ first full season in management and their rise to the Wembley showpiece…

There have been no suit fittings for the Millwall squad ahead of their season-defining clash against Barnsley on Sunday. Instead, the Millwall players will be wearing tracksuits before the play-off final and that’s exactly how manager Neil Harris wants it.

Wembley may be the location, but it’s being treated as just another match by Harris and his staff. It’s a business-like approach that has certainly served his young squad well this season and could yet reap the reward of promotion back to the Championship. It’s also a methodology and style that has impressed Andy Ambler. 

“Neil is learning all the time and his feet are on the ground. But I believe, without bigging him up too much, that he’s got the potential to be one of the best English managers in many, many years,” Ambler told Sky Sports. 

Whatever the outcome at Wembley, Harris’ first full season in management has been a success.

Harris has restored optimism at a club that had lost its way following the departure of Kenny Jackett in 2013. The subsequent appointments of Steve Lomas, and then Ian Holloway, had not proved successful and by the time Harris assumed interim control in March 2015, Millwall were already heading for League One with a demoralised first-team squad.

“It was probably more of a gamble for him than it was for us,” Ambler added when recalling the decision to offer Harris the reins on a temporary basis. 

“We were a struggling Championship side. We lost 4-0 away to Bradford in the FA Cup for a place to play against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in the next round and had been battered elsewhere. 

“The morale in the dressing room was probably as low as I had ever seen it while I have been at the club. We all felt that we could be putting Neil in a situation that might bring him down.”

But Harris – Millwall’s all-time record goalscorer with 138 goals – was confident enough to believe he could have a positive impact on a club where he is considered part of the fabric.

He took the job on a permanent basis last summer and, along with Ambler and owner John Berylson, quickly went about changing the club’s …

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