Millwall have announced that long-serving manager Neil Harris has stepped down as manager after four years and seven months in charge.

His assistant, Dave Livermore, has also left the club. Adam Barrett is temporarily in charge of first team affairs.

Harris took over in March 2015 after Ian Holloway was sacked, before almost staving off a seemingly inevitable relegation to League One. The Lions were, however, relegated – which gave the new boss a chance to rejuvenate his squad.

In his first full season in charge, Millwall finished 4th in League One and lost the Play-Off Final to Barnsley 3-1 at Wembley.

Like as a player, Harris followed up defeat with Play-Off victory a year later against Bradford – in a season where the Lions also reached the FA Cup Quarter Finals having beaten three Premier League sides in consecutive rounds.

Coming in to the Championship is a hard task – particularly with a budget as small as the South Londoners’, but Harris worked wonders in 2017/18 to put Millwall in with a shout of reaching the Play-Offs, with only two defeats in the final three matches seeing his side drop out of the top six.

2018/19 was, unfortunately, less successful. Despite reaching an FA Cup Quarter Final (and losing agonisingly to Brighton on penalties), Millwall struggled in the league and finished just one spot above the three relegation places.

That led to plenty of changes to the squad, many of which are yet to come to fruition.

At a club where he is the record goal scorer as a player too, it is maybe hard for those looking in from the outside to see why Harris has gone – but the timing seems right here.

His tenure appeared to be reaching a natural conclusion after a squad overhaul in the summer was not producing results, and chants from the fans away to Luton will not have helped his mood.

Harris is favourite for the Southend job, whilst Chris Hughton is the early favourite with Sky Bet to take over in SE16.

One thing is for sure, Harris departs a Millwall legend.

Image: Millwall FC