Position: Third, 83 points (GD +15)
Top scorer: Femi Azeez – 11 goals
Key stat: 41% of Millwall’s Championship goals this season came from set-pieces (26/64 – excluding penalties). Only Sheffield Wednesday (48%) and Oxford United (44%) had a higher proportion.
Play-off record: Eight campaigns, two promotions (both in League One in 2010 and 2017).
Last time in second-tier play-offs: 2001-02 – lost 2-1 on aggregate to Birmingham City in the semi-final.
Record v other play-off teams this season: P6 W3 D1 L2
Few would have predicted Millwall to reach the play-offs, let alone challenge for automatic promotion until the final day of the season as they did, finishing just one point behind second-placed Ipswich.
But Alex Neil, who has won promotion via the play-offs twice before as a manager, has done an excellent job with a Lions side who have the best away record in the division and kept the most clean sheets (18).
The wait for this opportunity has been a long one. Margaret Thatcher was prime minister and a 24-year-old Teddy Sheringham was the club’s top goalscorer the last time Millwall were in the top flight in 1990.
And you have to go back 24 years for the last time the south London club made it to the second-tier play-offs.
“We’re in the play-offs with an unbelievable season but there’s still a lot to play for,” Neil told BBC Radio London.
“I speak to the players regularly about what we’ve managed to do and how we’ve managed to do it, but we’re not satisfied, we’re never satisfied.
“You want to be the team that gets into the final, you want to be the team to be promoted.
“For this group, what we’ve done, how we’ve done it, I think we deserve to have something for our efforts come the end of it, not just a pat on the back and a well done. We’re hoping there is still a fairy-tale ending for us.”
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