The pair will meet in the first semi-final on Friday night
Alex Neil says Hull City deservedly claimed a play-off place(Image: Ian Tuttle/Shutterstock)
Alex Neil has revealed how he’s looking forward to coming up against Hull City head coach Sergej Jakirovic once again when the pair meet in Friday night’s play-off semi-final.
Neil guided Millwall to third spot in the Championship, narrowly missing out on automatic promotion after Ipswich Town’s dominant 3-0 win over QPR on Saturday.
Their own 2-0 success over already relegated Oxford United set up a mouthwatering play-off showdown with City, after the Tigers beat Norwich City to snatch sixth place.
Neil admitted it would have been a sickener for City to have missed out on the top six, and said that he felt Jakirovic’s side were full value for being in the play-offs, along with Southampton and Middlesbrough, with that pair contesting the other semi-final on Saturday lunchtime.
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I think it’s a tough tie,” the Scotsman told BBC London. “The game here they beat us, we beat them at their place, and they’re a good side. I’m not really biased in any way, obviously, but I’m actually glad it’s them because I think over the course of the season, they deserve to be there.
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“They’ve been there for the majority of the year, and it would be a sickener from their point of view, and I like their coach as well, so yeah.”
Millwall’s 80 points is one of their highest ever points totals, but finishing third and being praised for that, is not what Neil wants out of the season, with him desperate to finish the job at City’s expense, and then onto the Wembley final.
“We’re not satisfied, we’re never satisfied,” he continued. “You want to win the next game, you want to be the team that gets into the final, you want to be the team to be promoted, so I just think for this group, what we’ve done, how we’ve done it, I think we deserve to have something for our efforts come the end of it, not just a pat on the back and a well done.
“The more you play in big games, the more you become accustomed to them, and I think right now we’ve played in a lot of big games this year. I thought we handled them there really well, and we’re gonna need that going into the play-offs.”
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