{"id":413825,"date":"2026-02-08T01:39:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T01:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/413825\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T01:39:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T01:39:10","slug":"sam-parkins-efl-takeaways-from-leicester-woe-to-norwich-revival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/413825\/","title":{"rendered":"Sam Parkin&#8217;s EFL takeaways, from Leicester woe to Norwich revival"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Millwall posted an impressive 2-0 win away at fellow promotion contenders Wrexham on Saturday to create a gap between themselves and the chasing pack. Five points behind the top two, can we consider them automatic promotion challengers?<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Parkin: &#8220;I would say that&#8217;s probably a stretch, as we sit here today. They&#8217;ve got an incredible opportunity to be a Premier League team next season, but I think it&#8217;ll be probably a case of doing it via the play-offs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;This is the most complete Millwall squad I can think of in recent memory. You&#8217;ve got the experience of [Jake] Cooper and Billy Mitchell, who have been there a long time, but there is now so much more control and quality across a variety of positions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;[Caleb] Taylor and Barry Bannan have come in. Femi Azeez is one of the best forwards in the division at the moment, and the signings they made at the end of the window \u2013 I know [Anthony] Patterson didn&#8217;t play today, but him and Tommy Watson from Brighton would arguably get into most teams in the Championship.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It tells you how far Millwall have come. There is a lot of joined up thinking, a real plan behind the scenes for Millwall to become, realistically, a Premier League team. They had to add a bit more quality, a bit more control and guile in midfield &#8211; they&#8217;ve done that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The way they&#8217;ve had success is by being really tough to play against at the Den, being physical at set-pieces, and they can still do all that, but there are many more facets to their game.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It was the stand-out result of the day, because it gives them a six-point buffer over Wrexham and Preston. They&#8217;re sitting pretty, and they&#8217;ve got a real opportunity to achieve something special.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Millwall posted an impressive 2-0 win away at fellow promotion contenders Wrexham on Saturday to create a gap&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-413825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}