It was tight. It was tense. It was not very good. That about sums up the first leg of the Championship playoff semi-final between Hull City and Millwall, which ended all square - meaning Millwall essentially get a one-off home game on Monday with a trip to Wembley on the line.
The match sputtered to a close after four minutes of stoppage time that mostly involved Hull punting the ball forward and Millwall heading it away. The referee blew his whistle before anyone could muster a second thought.
The final frantic moments saw Hull’s Ivanovic fire a long-range shot that hit Millwall’s Hughes on the back and bounced out for a corner. Then, in the 86th minute, something genuinely interesting happened: Millwall’s Leonard turned in a cross, but the referee spotted a foul by Crama on Hughes and disallowed it. The crowd briefly stirred, then returned to their existential contemplation.
Earlier, Hull’s substitution of Hirakawa and Joseph in the 70th minute nearly paid off when Hirakawa delivered a lovely cross to McBurnie, whose glancing header went wide. Millwall’s Neghli also had a shot from distance that wasn’t terrible - a low, hard left-footed effort that flew across goal and wide off the outside of the far post. High praise, indeed.
The first three minutes were wonderful - Belloumi’s run and shot in the second minute was the highlight - but the remaining 87 minutes were a masterclass in mediocrity. Crama had perhaps the night’s worst shot from 35 yards out, missing the target by at least 25. Millar cut onto his right foot and curled a cross straight out of play. There were shirt-pulls, offside flags, and a lot of running enthusiastically out of play.
As one reader noted, it’s like that old joke about the guy who opened an Irish pub on the moon - no atmosphere.