John Eustace argues with Alex Neil over Millwall’s late Derby County victory

Following Millwall’s late victory over Derby County, both managers have spoken out.

Millwall defeated Derby County away on Saturday, damaging manager John Eustace’s home debut. Josh Coburn scored five minutes into extra time to return the points to the capital, and Millwall are currently in 11th place, six points out of the playoffs.

The Lions will want to secure their top half status before deciding whether they are playoff material down the stretch, but for the time being, they will be thrilled to have won their first away league game of the month, and Neil Harris believes his team deserved it.

“I thought it was no more than what we deserved in the game,” he told MillwallTV. “I thought we had good opportunities in the game, and I thought in the first half, we had two or three good chances.

“Japhet [Tanganga] should have had a penalty. We got into good positions but just lacked that final ball. We had a shot in the second half. The keeper made a good save with his feet, we missed a penalty, so we did enough to win the game. When you miss those opportunities, you are worried that the goal won’t come. I felt all the subs that came on made us stronger, they gave us energy, and they got after the ball more.

“You could say we played midweek, we travelled midweek and travelled again today, so you could say we’ve done a lot more than Derby in that sense, I thought that we were the team that at the end were pushing to get the goal, we deserved it, delighted for the lads.”

Derby manager Eustace disagreed with Neil’s assessment, claiming his team was unlucky to lose a closely contested match at Pride Park. In an interview with the Derby Telegraph, he expressed disappointment with the team’s loss, stating that they did not deserve it. We probably did not do enough to win, either. We were up against a really difficult team in Millwall, who had not lost many games in the previous ten or eleven.

“We knew it was going to be a tough match, but I was happy with the attitude of the boys. You can see the areas where we need to improve. It’s very evident. That just comes from hard work on the training ground.”