Hull City Defeats Millwall in Playoff Clash

Millwall went into this tie as the form side, unbeaten in six and bristling with home confidence. They walked out of it with another chapter in a miserable playoff history and their 100% losing record in Championship home legs still intact.

Hull, chasing memories of 2008 and 2016, started like a side well versed in this stage. They forced Millwall back from the first whistle, pinning them in with a flurry of early corners. Most were dealt with, but the warning signs were clear when Charlie Hughes rose to glance a header inches wide of the far post, the ball rolling past in agonising slow motion for the visitors and with clear relief for The Den.

Given Hull’s habit of striking early on the road – only champions Coventry scored more away goals in the opening quarter-hour during the regular season – Millwall had every reason to feel grateful the scoreboard still read 0-0.

That escape jolted the hosts into life. The Lions snapped into the contest, pushed higher, and suddenly it was Hull feeling the strain. Femi Azeez almost flipped the script within two minutes of Hughes’ miss, driving in from a tight angle on Millwall’s first truly threatening move of the night.

From there, the first half belonged to Alex Neil’s side. They hunted in packs, won second balls, and forced Hull to retreat. Thierno Ballo, heavily involved after a robust challenge that ended Kyle Joseph’s evening with an ankle problem, came within a whisker of the opener when a low cross from the right skimmed just beyond his stretching boot at the far post. The Den roared; the ball refused to cooperate.

Millwall’s problem this season, though, has rarely been the first 45 minutes. Twenty of the 25 league goals they had conceded at home came after the interval, and that fragility almost surfaced again three minutes into the second half.

Hull sliced through them with their sharpest move of the match. Regan Slater’s clever pass released Oli McBurnie, who darted to the near post and pulled the trigger. Tristan Crama read it brilliantly, throwing himself in the way to block what looked a certain goal. It was a huge intervention and, for a while, it felt like it might be the moment Millwall built on.

Instead, the game drifted towards the hour, tense and tight, neither side willing to overcommit. Neil, chasing only a second win in seven personal meetings with Hull, reached for his bench. Among the changes came Alfie Doughty, tasked with injecting fresh energy down the flank.

The decision backfired almost immediately.

Barely a minute after Doughty’s introduction, Matt Crooks split the game open with a raking ball to the right. Mohamed Belloumi, lively all evening, brought it under control, stepped inside with purpose and curled a sumptuous left-footed strike into the far corner. It flew past Doughty and beyond Anthony Patterson, the goalkeeper who only last season had tasted playoff glory with Sunderland at Wembley.

The blow rattled Millwall. The noise dipped. Hull sensed vulnerability.

It nearly unravelled completely when Barry Bannan, himself a two-time playoff winner with Blackpool in 2010 and Sheffield Wednesday in 2023, surrendered possession cheaply in midfield. Belloumi pounced, slid a pass into the path of Liam Millar, and the Canadian seemed poised to kill the tie. Jake Cooper had other ideas, throwing himself in front of the shot and deflecting it over the bar with a desperate, crucial block.

Cooper’s heroics only delayed the inevitable.

With 12 minutes left, Hull struck again, and Belloumi was at the heart of it once more. He collected the ball on the right, sized up his options, then produced a devastating, outside-of-the-boot pass across the box. It arrived perfectly for substitute Joe Gelhardt, who had timed his run and his evening to perfection.

Gelhardt steadied himself, picked his spot and drilled a low finish into the bottom-right corner. Patterson got a hand to it but couldn’t keep it out. Millwall’s resistance, and their season, effectively ended there.

The Den knew it. The urgency drained away, replaced by a familiar, hollow frustration. Millwall, who had finished as “best of the rest” and dared to believe this might finally be their year, must now live with another missed opportunity and a wait that stretches back to their last top-flight appearance in 1990.

Hull, by contrast, stride on with the weight of history behind them. They have never been knocked out in the Championship playoffs, and just a year after scrambling to stay in the division on the final day, they now stand one win from the Premier League.

With Wembley looming on 23 May and the “Promised Land” just 90 minutes away, they will travel south with momentum, belief, and the game’s standout performer, Mohamed Belloumi – deservedly named Flashscore Man of the Match – at the centre of a season that has turned from survival scrap to promotion charge in remarkable time.