The Report: Southend 4 Millwall 1

I said that I thought Southend had a good chance of beating Millwall in the FA Cup on Saturday but I didn’t think, no matter how intoxicated my dreams were, that we’d slay Harris’ Championship side four-one with a floodlight failure causing us more trouble than his team.

Southend were definitely more up for this fight, literally and perhaps Corr got a bit lucky when he might have used an elbow on Smith? The referee said no and nothing was given with the only prevention from the lead being taken the Millwall goalkeeper, Straker, Timlin and Corr all denied by Forde in the one move.

Corr, as mentioned might not have been on the pitch, but he was and it was the striker that continued his FA Cup goalscoring success on 22 minutes as he headed home White’s cross to give Southend the lead that was merited.

Then the lights went out.

Would the game carry on, would the chance of a Southend upset be denied us? Some 15 minutes later that question was answered as they came back on and the game resumed and it resumed with Millwall being reduced to ten men just before half time. A stamp on Coker by Easter was seen and he went, if we’d had a chance at one-nil with it one-nil against ten-men we would manage the upset wouldn’t we? Atkinson kept his cool to chip Forde deep into added time at the end of the first 45 as the lead was extended to help this quest.

You know it’s your day when Timlin scores, he doesn’t get many of them but on 57 minutes he’d put Southend further ahead with a rare goal. You’ve got to go back almost two years for his last one.

Tactical changes for Millwall made a bit of difference and one of those that came on was Woolford and he gave Millwall a bit of hope on 64 minutes when he pulled one back but buoyed by his double against Portsmouth Leonard let fly again. From fully fifty yards an incredible effort was tipped over by Forde that really would have been the icing on the cake of quite a week for him.

Millwall had the post come to their recue as this prevented Corr from adding more salt to their wounds. His header had beaten Forde but not the post but Leonard did get his goal in the fifth-minute of added time at the end of the 90 minutes with his third goal in two games, not as good as his others but still a powerful hit that no one was saving.

Southend might have got a little fortune smile on them with Corr escaping punishment, but we made the most of it and completely outplayed Millwall and if things carry on like they are this season we’ll be meeting again next season in League 1 with us going up and them coming down.

We’ve got the next round of the FA Cup to look forward to now with us just one win away from equalling our best ever run in this competition and going further than we have already in five years.

Can we play Millwall every week?