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Leicester protests continue, mocked by chant, Millwall’s automatic promotion hopes take a hit

Leicester protests continue, while also being mocked by a chant, but Millwall’s automatic promotion hopes take a hit.

At a half empty King Power Stadium, Harry Souttar, playing his first game since rupturing an Achilles 16 months ago, gave the hosts a surprise lead on 78 minutes.

But Millwall had Macaulay Langstaff to thank with a 90th-minute equaliser. While the 1-1 draw sees Millwall climb up to second place in the Championship, they were left frustrated by the already-relegated side.

The Lions are only a point above 3rd place Ipswich who have two games in hand. Kieran McKenna’s side are away at West Brom in the Saturday lunchtime kick off and need five points from their remaining three games to make an immediate return to the Premier League, but as per BBC Sport, their vastly superior goal difference means four will probably be enough.

Millwall boss Alex Neil told BBC Sport:

“There is disappointment [in the changing room] because we’ve not won the game, and that is always the overriding emotion whether it is the second last game or if it’s the second game.

“It doesn’t make any difference because we set out to win and we tried to win. There will always be frustration for the fact that I think when you get a point and haven’t played well, you can be quite content, but we feel we played well and had enough opportunities to make a difference and to score, and we didn’t take them.

“Depending on what happens in the next couple of games will determine how important or not important that point will be.

“We just need to try and finish with as many points as we can. We were never thought to be in contention for the top two at any point, not with anybody, and we are still here with one game to play. For that to be the case, this group of players has done magnificently well.”

Neil, per Sky Sports:

“We are second at the moment, obviously the advantage is with Ipswich, they have a couple of games but there are still points to play for.

“We are on 80 points at the moment and we have a home game coming up. They’ve got work to do and I’m sure West Brom and Southampton will want to win, as will Oxford when they play us.

“Football is a strange game, isn’t it? We will see how Ipswich go but I’m a big believer in across the season whoever ends up second deserves to be there. If they manage to do it good luck to them – and it will be our task to attack the play-offs.

“There’s disappointment that we haven’t won the game. We were never in top-two contention at any point with anybody so these players have done magnificent.”

Leicester City manager Gary Rowett said:

“It was always going to be a tough evening knowing that we sealed our fate on Tuesday. There was a little bit of me wondering how we would respond and how we would perform.

“We spoke candidly about the need to be professional and the need to make sure that we did out jobs at the very least.

“The first half was probably an indication of Millwall just wanted the game a little bit more – they had more energy and ran with more intensity at times.

“In the second half we had a bit more energy and a bit more fight about our performance and the goal sums it up. I’ve spoken about wanting a bit more nastiness and a little more bloody-mindedness to score some scruffier goals in one box and to defend the other better.

“And Harry Souttar summed it up tonight, he headed everything out of our box and had real desire, along with Jannik [Vestergaard] and the one opportunity he gets in the other box, he attacks it like there is only one person that is going to score.

“We have missed that, and for someone to give us that after being out for 450-odd days is quite incredible.”

Millwall’s Jake Cooper has told Sky Sports:

“We’d lilke to think we created enough chances to win the game.

“It was going to be about the first goal and we feel we could have defended better for their goal but after that we put as much pressure on as we could and Macca (Macaulay Langstaff) got us a good goal at the end there.

“We’re hoping they (West Brom) can get a win but for us as a football club we’re proud of what we’ve done and will try to push it as far as we can.”

Millwall’s Macaulay Langstaff told Sky Sports:

“The most important thing when you’re 1-0 down is don’t lose the game and try and get a point.

“We had chances after the goal as well where we could have nicked it.

“I’m disappointed we didn’t win the game but it’s a good point in the end.”

Here’s the social media reaction after Leicester protests continue, mocked by chant, and Millwall’s automatic promotion hopes take a hit…

@Jonathan_LCFC_ (replying to @MillwallFC): As a Leicester fan, feel embarrassed for you. Most of us didn’t bother going tonight and you still couldn’t beat us in a 3/4 empty stadium when we are booing our own players. Still, most football fans delighted your fans won’t be disgracing the Premier League.

@itfc_louis2 (replying to @MillwallFC): Ipswich’s fault that one lads 😢😢😢 unlucky x

@TravelsFooty (replying to @MillwallFC): Can’t blame this one on Ipswich lads x

@Lukeee_UK (replying to @MillwallFC): As proud as I am of the team and Alex Neil and getting the playoffs, that was just shit and not good enough, doesn’t help losing Taylor and Coburn for this game

@JPMillwall2 (replying to @MillwallFC): Oh well. Gave it a good go. Ultimately we’ve missed out on top 2 due to squad depth. Our first XI can go against anyone in this division but January reinforcements were very poor if we’re honest. We go again in playoffs. Need Coburn and Mitchell back big time

@HPackham17 (replying to @MillwallFC): So fucking annoying but maybe one step too far. Oh well playoffs bar a miracle. We cannot go into them with Crama at CB. Our whole system relies on him being out wide so heavily.

@grs_67: We didn’t make their keeper work enough with the amount of shots we had. Leicester made it difficult, typical Rowett performance, at least we got something from the game.. If it’s done tomorrow at least we have more than a week to prepare for the Playoffs #Millwall

@RFox55_ (replying to @LCFC): Why are they suddenly showing some fight when the pressures off? Where was this all season?

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