Millwall FC and Neil Harris hit the jackpot with Wolves transfer – It unearthed a Lions hero
By the time that Jed Wallace made it official with Millwall, they’d already had him on loan twice. Making it permanent turned out to benefit both the club and the player.
Millwall have always had to keep their wits about them in the transfer market in a bid to stay established in the Championship. Spending 13 of the last 15 seasons in the second-tier is testament to the work done there.
As such, digging diamonds from the rough can be a challenge, but they really hit a jackpot when Neil Harris signed Wallace, a winger who they’d had on loan twice before making his signature permanent in 2017.
Millwall had a look at Jed Wallace before making it permanent
Wallace started his career in non-league football but originally made his name in the Portsmouth team that was suffering an extremely lengthy hangover from the 2010 financial crisis that nearly closed them altogether.
After three relegations in four years – he was there for the last two – in his last season at Fratton Park he scored 14 goals for them despite them only finishing 16th in League Two; their lowest position since they joined the League in 1920.
This earned him a transfer to Wolves in 2015, but things didn’t work out at the Championship club, and he only made 18 appearances for them over two seasons. But he didn’t lack for game time because Millwall stepped in twice and took him on loan, winning promotion from League One through the play-offs the second time they did.
Making it permanent worked for both Wallace and Millwall
Millwall signed Wallace permanently from Wolves for an undisclosed fee along with fellow former Wolves player George Saville in June 2017.
The results weren’t quite immediate. By the end of November, Millwall were 19th in the Championship, just three places above the relegation spots. But in the second half of the season they soared, going unbeaten for 17 games and lifting themselves to a final position of eighth, just three points from a play-off place. After a close shave with relegation the following season, they finished eighth again in 2020, this time just two points from the play-offs.
And Wallace was earning himself a reputation as one of the best attacking players in the Championship. As a winger, and something of a touchline-hugger at that, he was unlikely to often be near the top of their top goalscorer list (though he did achieve this in 2020/21), but that wasn’t really what he was there for. Even so, over his five years at The Den as a permanent signing, he scored 38 times but also provided 41 assists in a total of 225 games for the club.
