Jed Wallace hoping to be a superhero again – with Millwall talisman enjoying being back to his peak powers
Jed Wallace is hoping to be a superhero at Select Car Leasing Stadium tomorrow and ensure he doesn’t upset his sons again.
The 27-year-old ended a four-month spell without scoring in Millwall’s most recent match on the road – a 2-1 win at Derby County last week – and usually asks Luca, four, or Noah, two, for ideas on the celebration.
But that all went out of the window at Pride Park.
“I hadn’t scored in 13 games, so I’d forgotten how to celebrate,” Wallace told the South London Press.
“My little lad wasn’t happy, because normally I ask my four-year-old what he wants me to do. Some of the shouts I get, I can’t do them – as much as I love him.
“Last week he wanted me to be a kingfisher. He loves animals. How am I going to be a kingfisher? For Blackburn at home I did an eagle. He’s not like a normal four-year-old that asks for a cow or a chicken – he wants me to be a platypus or a poisoned dart frog.
“I’ve got my other one, who is two, saying: ‘Do Spiderman’. I was Superman at Sheffield United away. My older one goes first, now I’m back to my younger one.”
Wallace’s special powers to make the Lions tick has been back in evidence in recent weeks.
He produced the assists for Tyler Burey’s goal against QPR and it was his free-kick that was emphatically headed home by Jake Cooper in Saturday’s 1-0 win over Sheffield United at The Den.
Wallace had nearly two months on the sidelines with a quad injury before making his return in the stalemate with Preston in SE16 at the start of February.
“That was the worst I had felt on a football pitch in 10 years,” said the former Wolves and Portsmouth player.
“I trained for 45 minutes in six weeks, came on and made one run – couldn’t breathe.
“I felt a lot better against Fulham and Cardiff and I’ve been back to full fitness in the last three games.
“I think you’ve seen that little freshness, where having that breather for five or six weeks might even have hopefully kicked me on for the rest of the season.”
Millwall had looked set to have nothing to play for in the closing months until four straight victories – their best run since March 2018 when they nearly gatecrashed the play-offs – has put them back into the mix.
They are five points behind sixth-placed Luton with 13 matches left to play. With odds of around 7/1 to finish in the play-offs, they do not have room for many errors – or even draws – to muscle their way even more into the promotion picture.
The recent form is made all the more impressive against the backdrop of plenty of first-teamers being in the physio’s room.
“We shouldn’t get in the play-offs,” said Wallace. “You only have to look at Saturday and see us bringing on Zak Lovelace when Sheffield United bring on [Sander] Berge and [Morgan] Gibbs-White – that’s what you are up against, the quality the chasing pack of teams have. But this is Millwall Football Club and that is the mentality we have – when things don’t go well we pull in tight and the fanbase get behind us. When we’re in crisis it seems like we respond – like Coventry away.
“I was convinced we were going to win that game when I saw it was all going to pot with Covid cases everywhere – the game was on, then off and then on again. You see it again now – we’ve got an injury crisis but this clubs pulls together when it needs to and bounces back when no-one expects it.”
There were more setbacks in that respect at the weekend with in-form attacker Mason Bennett forced off early on against the Blades with an oblique muscle problem. Shaun Hutchinson, such a calming and imperious influence at centre-back, also made way in the second period with a calf issue.
“We’ve got something like 10 players out when you include Nana Boateng, he’d be involved with us,” said Wallace. “But that’s Millwall Football Club. You can try and improve everything but ultimately when you play football at The Den, as a home player, you have got to roll your sleeves up, get in the opposition’s face – be intimidating and horrible to play against. That’s in the DNA of Millwall Football Club. It doesn’t matter what skills you can do on the ball or anything else, sometimes here at home you have to strip it all back and be horrible opposition. The fans get on our side.
“You saw that on Saturday. It was a horrible game but we went toe to toe with a squad probably far better than ours, and we won.
“You walk off that pitch almost 10-feet tall with the fans behind you and that edge in the game. Historically since I’ve been here we’ve always been able to get that result when the chips are down.”
The home support certainly reacted favourably to seeing the Lions players scrap, snap and snarl their way to a 13th Championship victory of the season.
While Saturday was not a sellout – 14,638 in attendance – it felt like one of the better home atmospheres in the 2021-22 campaign.
“The Den has been flat, pretty much, a lot of the season,” admitted Wallace. “But that’s probably our own fault, because our performances have been a bit lacklustre.
“We haven’t been on the front foot as much as we should have at home. Maybe the catalyst was Moro [Steve Morison] coming back [with Cardiff] and giving that little bit of needle. We won that game and then the QPR one felt like a real Millwall home atmosphere. That carried on into the Sheffield United one.
“The fans were just waiting for the players to turn up and show that intensity, to give them something to get behind. The atmosphere and the performances in the last three games at The Den has been brilliant. It’s something we need to carry on.”
Wallace agrees that the 2-0 win over QPR in mid-February is their most complete display yet.
“We’ve threatened it a lot – we’ve had decent 45-minute spells here and there,” he said. “But that was the one where we really did it for 90 minutes. I’m a big believer that off the ball stuff comes first at Millwall.
“I know the quality we have got in the squad, you could see it in the goals we got that night. But a Den behind a Millwall player, who has a little bit of confidence and a spring in his step, certainly turns an average player into a very, very good one. At the moment a lot of the lads are looking very good players.
“We’ve got very good depth to the squad but that’s no good if it is all in the medical room.
“I was part of a team that went 17 unbeaten and won 13 of those. We had a lot of luck that year, we had no injuries. You could name the 11 off the top of your head, even now – Jordan [Archer] in goal; [Jake] Cooper, Hutch, [James] Meredith – Marsh [Ben Marshall] on the left and me on the right with Willo [Shaun Williams] and Sav [George Saville in the middle; Moro and Gregs [Lee Gregory] up front.
“With consistent results you sometimes need the ability to pick a consistent 11, we’ve probably not had that enough this season. But credit to the lads who hadn’t been playing so much – Tyler [Burey] and Benno have really stepped up. Kief [Maikel Kieftenbeld] had been excellent for a couple of games.”
With Wallace in the final few months of his Millwall contract, and expected to move on this summer for a fresh challenge, Burey and Bennett could be the aires to the entertainer’s throne.
“I love Tyler – his target at the moment is that he’s got to stay in the team,” said Wallace. “I’ve had a lot of chats with him and I still think he is playing at 60 or 70 per cent.
“He’s brilliant on the ball but he has got to learn, when you look at the likes of [Sadio] Mane and [Mohamed] Salah – they score so many goals where they are making that run from outside to in. It’s something he needs to add to his game.
“He can beat anyone with his pace, power and directness. He’s got a great attitude. Now it is about learning his craft. He has only played something like 10 games. He’s only going to improve.
“Benno is everything I’m not – he’s strong, can hold the ball up and take hits. I’m fit as a fiddle, so I can do all his running for him.
“He has those moments, like his assist for the Derby goal when he runs down the wing. I don’t think there are many players in the league who can do that.
“People talk about his fitness, but do you know how hard it is to run with that power for 40 yards? The balance he has to have to keep on his feet and cross the ball – he has been an absolute focal point for us in the last five or six games.”
