As Saturday brings the first South London derby in five years, what can we expect against the side we've not beaten competitively for nearly 30 slightly awkward years?
Charlton host Millwall at The Valley on Saturday afternoon, with a crowd in the low twenty thousands expected despite a wet and windy forecast. Both sides are in the lower half of the Championship and looking for points to steady their seasons as the autumn fixtures start to pile up.
The fixture comes with the usual statistic attached: Charlton have not beaten Millwall in a competitive match for 29 years. It is an eye-catching number, but as the famous phrase attributed to Mark Twain goes – “lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Context matters. The last victory was a 2–0 win at The Valley in 1996, but the clubs then went 13 years without meeting because of Charlton’s time in the Premier League. Since the derby resumed in 2009, there have been 12 encounters and despite beginning with a remarkable 4–4 draw at The Valley none of these have gone Charlton’s way.
The margins have often been fine. Aside from Millwall’s 4–0 home win in 2010, the games have typically been close, including the most recent meeting behind closed doors in July 2020, when Jake Cooper’s late goal floored us with the force of a punch from his namesake Henry to seal their 1–0 away win.
If there's ever a good time to break the duck it's now. We don't want to be sitting here a year from now with 30 or more as the new 29. Yet as pointed out recently by Millwall blogger Nick Hart in a BBC Fans' Voice report, both of their victories in the League this season have come "on the road," and in a "very Millwall style" of winning at awkward places to go.
However it's not just going to awkward places and winning that makes this a proper old school Millwall team. They're also expectedly old school when it comes to their tactical set up. They wouldn’t quite please Mike Bassett but they do play 4-4-2, sort of. They like to press high, utilising their two strikers to pressurise centre backs, and have been very successful in doing so away from home this season. Like Charlton, they play with a slightly lopsided formation. The right midfielder tucks into the middle, relying on width from the fullback while on the left, the winger plays wider. That means that both teams' more attacking flanks will come up against each other. Millwall have been scuppered by injuries and had a busy end to the transfer window, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see an adapted set up.
Whatever happens they are likely to be awkward opponents because that's just the Millwall way to be. Nathan Jones though has a point to prove and is hungry for the last laugh, which hopefully he will be getting early to mid-Saturday afternoon. He has a reputation for setting his teams up awkwardly too and will be looking to bounce back from QPR's perhaps expected bounce back from their horrendous 7-1 thumping by Coventry City the week before.
Hopefully this time it is Millwall's turn to feel the bite of a bounce back after a bad result; being put to the sword in a packed Valley should certainly meet their definition of an awkward place to go. Significantly our only win this season has come in another London derby, that glorious 1-0 win over Watford on the opening day of the season. Amazing to think, after a very northern-heavy spell in League One, we're into our third London League derby of the season already, and we've not even reached half way in the number of games that Nathan Jones says is needed to get a sense of the direction that a season is going in. Regardless of that, it does feel like a bit of a six pointer even at this stage because whoever loses falls below the other.
Not that we are trying to big up the fixture or anything. We don't need to. It's Millwall after all and we both hate Palace. However, for 90 minutes this Saturday, it's Us v Them in ‘El Awkwardico’, the derby to match any of London's many derbies, fought out between two clubs proudly South London, not that place where the suburbs of Surrey imagines itself to be Brighton. Forget Arsenal v Tottenham, Chelsea v Fulham. This is it - real London football not for the faint hearted.
Metaphorically speaking, it's going to be murder on the pitch in front of a bumper crowd and we're going for Miles in the penalty box with a late header to kill off the 29 year wait for bragging rights between SE7 and London Bridge.
P.S. If you are the mystery man (shadow) in the club cap in our picture from the January 2017 fixture, unfortunately we are not the actual club itself and don't have a budget for prizes for faces in the crowd, but you deserve one. Buy yourself a beer Saturday and the toast's from us.