Millwall’s Playoff Heartbreak Continues: Hull City’s Upset

Millwall’s latest playoff heartbreak was supposed to be different. The numbers said so, the table said so, the mood around The Den certainly said so. Ten points clear of Hull over the season, a whisker from automatic promotion on the final day, a home second leg under the lights. Everything pointed towards Wembley.

Instead, the old story played out again. And this one will sting.

Another chapter in a cruel history

This is the fourth time Millwall have reached the Championship playoffs and fallen in the semi‑finals, following exits in 1991, 1994 and 2002. The pattern has become a curse. This time, though, they arrived as heavy favourites and a club seemingly built for the occasion under Alex Neil, a manager who has made his name in precisely these high‑wire games.

Neil had called on the home crowd to turn the night into something unforgettable. The response was instant. “No one likes us, we don’t care” thundered around the ground as the teams emerged, the old anthem carrying a defiant edge, a sense that this was finally their moment.

Hull, though, had other plans.

Sergej Jakirovic, working on a modest budget and already punching above his weight just to reach this stage, ripped up the script. He switched to a back five, a bold tactical tweak that unsettled Millwall from the first whistle. It was Hull, not the hosts, who settled first and played with the calm of a side with nothing to lose.

Charlie Hughes forced Anthony Patterson into the first serious save of the night from a free‑kick on 10 minutes, a reminder that Hull had already won here 3-1 in December. The visitors looked comfortable, organised, and quietly dangerous.

Millwall’s surge, Hull’s resilience

The Den, though, rarely stays quiet for long. Millwall eventually found their rhythm and began to pin Hull back. Thierno Ballo saw a header hacked off the line by Kyle Joseph, then Femi Azeez – the winger who has climbed from the eighth tier with Northwood to become one of Millwall’s key attacking threats – drove in a fierce effort that Ivor Pandur beat away at his near post.

That spell felt like the Millwall many expected to see: direct, aggressive, relentless. Azeez buzzed between the lines, the crowd roared every tackle, and Hull had to ride out a storm.

They did. And every time they broke, they carried menace.

John Egan went close with a header from a free‑kick, then Oli McBurnie forced Patterson into a sharp stop from a fizzing Ryan Giles cross. Hull were not just surviving; they were asking questions.

Millwall’s biggest grievance of the night came five minutes before half-time. Casper De Norre’s cross struck Hughes on the arm inside the area and The Den exploded in appeal. Sam Barrott was unmoved, waving it away immediately, the defender’s arm judged to be in a natural position. The decision only added to the tension, especially after the controversy of Ryan Leonard’s disallowed goal in the first leg, which Neil had insisted should have stood.

On the touchline, Jakirovic suffered a blow of his own when Joseph limped off with a nasty-looking ankle injury. Sympathy from the home stands was in short supply; the Hull forward was booed as he was helped off by the physio, his night over.

Belloumi breaks the spell

Hull came out for the second half as they had started the first: on the front foot. Regan Slater teed up McBurnie, who looked certain to score, only for Tristan Crama to somehow hook the ball off the line. It felt like a let‑off that should have jolted Millwall into life.

Instead, the home side huffed and puffed without incision. The structure was there, the effort unquestionable, but the clear chances never came. Neil rolled the dice. Mihailo Ivanovic entered, the system shifted to a 4-4-2, and then came the experience: Alfie Doughty and Barry Bannon thrown into the fray to tilt the tie.

The decisive contribution, though, came from the other bench.

Joseph’s replacement, Mohamed Belloumi, had already started to torment Millwall down the left. He drifted, drove, demanded the ball. When it finally broke to him on the edge of the area, he didn’t hesitate. One touch to set himself, then a curling strike that kissed the far post on its way past Patterson.

The away end erupted. Hull’s players sprinted to the corner, Jakirovic punched the air, and the sound that followed was not just celebration but belief. Hull were in front, and Millwall’s season was suddenly hanging by a thread.

Gelhardt’s final twist

The tension only deepened. Bannon almost handed Hull a second with a loose pass straight to Slater, who couldn’t take advantage. At the other end, Ivanovic climbed well but headed over, one of the few half-chances Millwall could muster as time bled away.

The killer blow came with ruthless simplicity.

Belloumi again found space on the left and whipped in a cross. Joe Gelhardt, on the pitch for seconds, met it with his first touch. The contact wasn’t clean, the finish anything but emphatic, yet it was enough. The ball squirmed through Patterson’s fingers and dribbled over the line in agonising slow motion.

That was it. Millwall’s resistance gone, their playoff dream punctured once more.

Hull’s bold step, Millwall’s familiar pain

As the final whistle went, Hull’s players celebrated in front of their travelling supporters, many of whom had been handed free T‑shirts by chair Acun Ilicali as a gesture of thanks for making the journey to southeast London. They had watched their side become the first team to finish sixth and reach the Championship playoff final since Frank Lampard’s Derby in 2019. Now they will head to Wembley with every reason to believe they can upset the odds again, whoever awaits them there.

For Millwall, the only faint consolation is the likely prospect of renewing their rivalry with West Ham next season, a fixture not seen since 2012. That, though, will feel distant tonight.

This was supposed to be the year they broke the cycle. Instead, the curse lives on, and the question returns: how many more times can this club get this close without finally breaking through?