Millwall's Season: Key to Success on Away Journeys

Casper De Norre knows exactly where Millwall’s season will be won or lost. Not in the roar of The Den, but on the long coach journeys, in the hostile grounds, in the places they turned into a second home last year.

The Belgian midfielder has set the challenge plainly: match – or better – the remarkable away form that dragged the Lions into the Championship play-off picture last season.

Millwall were ruthless travellers in the 2025-26 campaign. No side collected more points on the road: 41 from 23 away games. Only champions Coventry City could match their 11 away wins. That record underpinned their push, and De Norre is under no illusion that it has to happen again.

“It’s very important if you want to achieve what we’re trying to achieve to go and get into those play-offs again,” he told BBC Radio London. “You have to be very good both at home and away, so it’s very good that we can start with an away win.”

They have started like a team that remembers exactly who it is.

On Saturday, Alex Neil’s side walked into Ashton Gate and left with a 2-0 victory over Bristol City, a performance that looked less like an opening-day feeler and more like a continuation of last season’s script. Organised, hard-running, clinical when it mattered.

“We’re off to a perfect start,” De Norre said. “It’s always a difficult game away at Bristol. I think the game just played out perfectly for us.”

The pressure finally told in both boxes. Millwall absorbed, then imposed. For a club that has built its recent identity on being awkward guests, it felt entirely on brand.

But this year, the stakes have shifted. With two extra play-off spots on offer, the path to the Premier League has widened slightly, even if the climb remains just as steep. Asked what counts as realistic for Millwall in that landscape, De Norre didn’t dress it up.

“Try to be a bit better than we were last year,” the 29-year-old said. “Go into the play-offs and try and finish it in the play-offs rather than going out.”

That last line cuts to the heart of Millwall’s modern story. Four times they have reached the second-tier play-offs. Four times they have fallen in the semi-finals. The door has opened; it has never been walked through.

They have not tasted top-flight football since 1990. Last season, they came agonisingly close to bypassing the play-off lottery altogether, missing out on automatic promotion by a single point to second-placed Ipswich Town in May. One point that still lingers around the club like a challenge.

So the mission is clear and unforgiving: turn last year’s frustration into this year’s edge. Keep winning away. Be “a bit better” when it matters most.

If Millwall can again turn other people’s grounds into their hunting territory, the question won’t be whether they reach the play-offs.

It will be whether this is finally the year they stay in them long enough to walk out at Wembley with everything on the line.