NEIL Harris has promised to bring the “emotion” back to Millwall after completing a sensational return to The Den.
A legendary figure for the Lions, Harris scored a club-record 138 goals across two spells as a player before embarking on a successful four-year stint as manager that yielded promotion to the Championship in 2017.
Exhausted, he stepped down two years later and has since spent time in charge at Cardiff, Gillingham and, most recently, Cambridge.
Harris, though, has always maintained that he’d be open to a return and when the disastrous 19- game reign of rookie boss Joe Edwards was ter minated on Wednesday, the 46-year-old quit the U’s to answer Millwall’s SOS.
“I was always very clear that I’d be here for the club when needed,” said Harris, who started the season at Gillingham and joined Cambridge in December, thus achieving the unusual feat of managing at all three levels of the EFL within a single campaign.
Ready
“In what capacity, I didn’t know, but at this moment they need me back as head coach to lead the team, and that’s brilliant. I’m ready - mentally and physically - for the challenge. It feels very natural to be back.”
Millwall won just four times under Edwards, who was jettisoned after a run of six defeats in seven league games left the Lions one point above the Championship relegation zone.
The 37-year-old, appointed to replace Gary Rowett in November, had attempted to move away from the blood-and-thunder football for which Millwall were renowned, but his more clinical approach left supporters cold and robbed the Lions of arguably their greatest weapon -The Den’s famously intimidating atmosphere. Harris will not make the same mistake.
“As a Millwall man, what I’ve learned is that you need controlled emotion,” he says. “Show it, use it. But channel it into hunger and aggression - don’t let it spill over.
“Because you want the opponent to play without that control. You want them to be raw. You want them to be agitated.
“That’s been
