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It will be a new look Millwall who arrive at Turf Moor following last week’s changes that saw manager Mark McGhee sacked and replaced on a temporary basis by Dennis Wise with Ray Wilkins coming in as assistant manager.
The change came the day after Millwall had lost at home to Preston and left them eighth in the table although a win would have seen them go fourth. It really didn’t add up and given McGhee’s record at Millwall it took some believing.
But news quickly revealed that there had been dressing room problems and that there had been something of a major bust up although these were quickly denied by Wise. But you know what they say about smoke and fire.
Last season was without doubt a difficult one for Millwall. They were hit by all the sanctions following the serious disorder after the 2001/02 Birmingham play off game and this had a dramatic effect with attendances massively down. On the field no club could have suffered more with injuries and a number of their influential players were out for long periods.
When the Clarets visited them last March, just five days before our FA Cup Quarter-Final at Watford, we were four points clear of them with two games in hand. They had an incredible run in though once their injuries cleared up and less than two months later they finished the season in ninth place with 66 points, by now well clear of the Clarets.
The summer saw one notable departure with Steven Reid, the player sent off against the Clarets at Millwall two seasons ago, moving to Blackburn for £2.5 million. This enabled McGhee to bring in Brazilian Juan on loan from Arsenal and Noel Whelan from Middlesbrough before the season started.
Juan has since returned to Highbury but there have been three other signings since. Belgian international striker, and former Burnley target, Bob Peeters arrived from Vitesse Arnham, Aboubacar Fofana came in from Juventus and Wolves’ former Australian full-back Kevin Muscat was signed from Rangers.
Muscat was back up to his old tricks though recently when he stamped on a Watford player in a televised game. He was given a final written warning by the club but incredibly Wise has now awarded him with the captaincy.
There has been another departure and that was Irish international Richard Sadlier who has been forced to retire through injury at the age of 24 and he will without doubt take some replacing.
Wise’s managerial stint got underway last Saturday and it was almost as you would have predicted. They beat then league leaders Sheffield United 2-0 but had two players sent off by referee Rob Styles.
The first to go was David Livermore and predictably the second was Wise who having left himself out had been on the pitch for less than four minutes as a substitute. A Neil Harris penalty and a second from Paul Ifill were enough though to win the game for the Lions.
The first Dennis Wise line up was: Tony Warner, Kevin Muscat, Paul Robinson, Darren Ward, Robbie Ryan, Paul Ifill, Andy Roberts, David Livermore, Aboubacar Fofana (Dennis Wise 84), Neil Harris, Bob Peeters (Noel Whelan 87). Subs not used: Willy Gueret, Stuart Nethercott, Kevin Braniff.
The Clarets will be hoping to get back to winning ways after picking up just a point from two games on their travels against a Millwall side that hasn’t won away from home since their first away game of the season when they won 1-0 at Sunderland.
Click HERE to see all Millwall’s results this season.
Past Results in the last 20 years
Season | Div | Ven | Result | Att | Scorers |
a | |||||
1983/84 | 3 | a | 0-2 | 6,707 | |
h | 1-0 | 5,088 | Biggins | ||
1984/85 | 3 | a | 1-2 | 5,376 | Hird |
h | 1-1 | 3,586 | Overson | ||
1994/95 | 1 | a | 3-2 | 7,375 | Winstanley(2) Robinson |
h | 1-2 | 10,454 | Shaw | ||
1996/97 | 2 | a | 1-2 | 9,281 | Nogan |
h | 1-0 | 9,840 | Weller | ||
1997/98 | 2 | h | 1-2 | 8,834 | Cooke |
a | 0-1 | 7,582 | |||
1998/99 | 2 | h | 2-1 | 8,526 | Cooke(2) |
a | 2-1 | 7,407 | Cooke Davis | ||
1999/2000 | 2 | a | 1-1 | 8,601 | Cooke |
h | 4-3 | 14,890 | Cox Cooke Davis Cook | ||
2001/02 | 1 | a | 2-0 | 11,903 | I Moore A Moore |
h | 0-0 | 16,131 | |||
2002/03 | 1 | h | 2-2 | 11,878 | West(pen) I Moore |
a | 1-1 | 6,045 | I Moore |
Click HERE
to see more results against Millwall.One from the past
Taylor Made
Burnley 5 (Hamilton Dobson Taylor 3) Millwall 0
Football League Division 3 – Saturday 27th September 1980
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The Clarets were playing 3rd Division football for the first time and were just coming into some form after an average start. But it was the fans who were in the news during the week leading up to the game and that was all due to their support a Chester’s Sealand Road ground on the previous Saturday.
The Clarets had turned up in vast numbers with the Cheshire club estimating the away support at somewhere between 700 and 1,000 in an attendance of 3,400. Chester’s previous home crowd had been 1,900.
It was remarkable show of loyalty by the Clarets fans, and there had been less than 5,000 on our previous home game.
The Chester secretary Stan Gandey was delighted with the boost and said, "As far as we were concerned the Burnley supporters gave us no problems at all. We were pleased to see them and we would have been quite happy to welcome another 1,000 of them.
"Clubs in our situation welcome the increased attendances and the money it brings. If away supporters are as well behaved as Burnley's we are pleased to see them and we certainly don’t want to see them banned (at a time when the Conservative Government were looking at forcing all games to be home fans only)".
Clarets’ boss Brian Miller added, "The support we’ve received in the away matches at Exeter, where a strong following travelled 270 miles to watch us, and at Chester, where we were amazed at the numbers, has been marvellous.
"You read a lot of publicity about supporters causing trouble but in the case the Burnley supporters deserve some praise."
That game ended 0-0 and was Burnley fourth consecutive game without conceding a goal. There was another clean sheet against Millwall and we eventually took it to seven games.
It was a full strength side that took on Millwall and that meant a home debut for Eric Potts who had signed from Preston just before the Chester match for £20,000.
We were in front early with a goal by Billy Hamilton on twelve minutes as he latched onto a long clearance from Alan Stevenson, moved into the box and chipped the ball past the visiting keeper.
It remained at 1-0 for the rest of the half but that was a surprise given the fact that we had dominated the first forty five minutes where according to the Burnley Express’ Ian Halstead three players had stood out.
They were Phil Cavener who was having his best game of the season down the right wing, Eric Potts who was having a sensational home debut and Tommy Cassidy an inspiration in midfield.
But the goals did finally come in the second half. Martin Dobson made it 2-0 ten minutes in and a couple of minute’s later Steve Taylor scored his first.
It was to be Taylor’s day in the end, he added a second with just five minutes to go and then stepped up to take an 88th minute penalty to complete his hat trick, a penalty that under normal circumstances would have been taken by Dobson.
Disappointingly he wasn’t able to take the match ball home with him, a Nelson company had sponsored it and kept it for themselves.
The teams were:
Burnley (4-3-3): Alan Stevenson, Brian Laws, Vince Overson, Martin Dobson, David Holt, Derek Scott, Tommy Cassidy, Eric Potts, Phil Cavener, Billy Hamilton, Steve Taylor. Sub not used: Ian Wood.
Millwall: Gleasure, Sitton (Dibble 62), Gregory, Chatterton, Tagg, Coleman, Martin, Roberts, Mitchell, Lyons, Mehmet.
Referee: Ken Redfearn (Whitley Bay).
Attendance: 5,643.