Millwall Meet Hull City in Playoffs Semi-Final First Leg
Millwall will face Hull City in the playoffs on Friday night in the first leg of their Championship semi-final. The tie is one step in a four-team route to promotion, with Southampton and Middlesbrough filling out the rest of the bracket.
Millwall And Hull City
Millwall go in having finished a point behind Ipswich and missed automatic promotion, but they also bring the league’s best away record, with 41 away points from 23 games and only four losses on the road. They beat Hull City 3-1 away in March, then lost 3-1 at home to the same opponent later in the season.
That split result is the sharpest reminder that this tie is not about reputation. Millwall have reached the final in each of their last four playoff appearances in League One, but they were beaten in the semi-finals in all three of their second-tier playoff appearances, including 1990-91, 1993-94 and 2001-02.
Hull City's 73 Points
Hull finished sixth with 73 points after coming from behind to beat Norwich 2-1 on the final day. Their season was far stronger than the raw table suggested: they ended 19.9 points above an expected points total of 53.1, and if the campaign had been decided on that figure they would have been 23rd.
The numbers around Hull make the matchup harder to read than a standard sixth-place run. Since the Championship rebrand in 2004-05, teams finishing sixth have reached the playoff final 17 times and won promotion nine times, but only two sixth-place sides have gone on to win the final. Crystal Palace were the last team to go up with fewer points than Hull, doing it with 72 in 2012-13.
Southampton With 69 Goals
Southampton are the other side of the bracket, and Tonda Eckert’s run adds another layer to the race. Since he took charge in November, Southampton have collected more points than any other Championship team, scored 69 goals and converted 14.4% of their shots.
Léo Scienza, 27, is part of that push, while Hull’s place in the playoffs follows a nine-year absence from the Premier League. The first leg now gives Millwall and Hull a direct path toward the final, and the team that handles the two legs best will keep the promotion climb alive.
