Millwall FC and Neil Harris hit the jackpot with Wolves transfer - It unearthed a Lions hero | OneFootball

Millwall had Jed Wallace twice on loan from Wolves before signing him permanently, and that turned out to be a decision that would reap them rewards.

By the time that Jed Wallace made it official with Millwall, they'd already had him on loan twice. Making it permanent turned out to benefit both the club and the player.

Millwall have always had to keep their wits about them in the transfer market in a bid to stay established in the Championship. Spending 13 of the last 15 seasons in the second-tier is testament to the work done there.

As such, digging diamonds from the rough can be a challenge, but they really hit a jackpot when Neil Harris signed Wallace, a winger who they'd had on loan twice before making his signature permanent in 2017.

Millwall had a look at Jed Wallace before making it permanent

Wallace started his career in non-league football but originally made his name in the Portsmouth team that was suffering an extremely lengthy hangover from the 2010 financial crisis that nearly closed them altogether.

After three relegations in four years - he was there for the last two - in his last season at Fratton Park he scored 14 goals for them despite them only finishing 16th in League Two; their lowest position since they joined the League in 1920.

This earned him a transfer to Wolves in 2015, but things didn't work out at the Championship club, and he only made 18 appearances for them over two seasons. But he didn't lack for game time because Millwall stepped in twice and took him on loan, winning promotion from League One through the play-offs the second time they did.

Making it permanent worked for both Wallace and Millwall

Millwall signed Wallace permanently from Wolves for an undisclosed fee along with fellow former Wolves player George Saville in June 2017.

The results weren't quite immediate. By the end of November, Millwall were 19th in the Championship, just three places above the relegation spots. But in the second half of the season they soared, going unbeaten for 17 games and lifting themselves to a final position of eighth, just three points from a play-off place. After a close shave with relegation the following season, they finished eighth again in 2020, this time just two points from the play-offs.

And Wallace was earning himself a reputation as one of the best attacking players in the Championship. As a winger, and something of a touchline-hugger at that, he was unlikely to often be near the top of their top goalscorer list (though he did achieve this in 2020/21), but that wasn't really what he was there for. Even so, over his five years at The Den as a permanent signing, he scored 38 times but also provided 41 assists in a total of 225 games for the club.

Figures from Soccerbase

The manner in which he left the club was a little strange. By the start of 2022, Wallace only had six months left on his contract and Millwall were again chasing a Championship play-off place. The club didn't want to lose him, so they turned down a £1.5 million bid from Nottingham Forest in the first week of the January transfer window and then slapped an unlikely-sounding £9 million price-tag on his head to deter other clubs from moving for him.

It didn't work. Millwall finished ninth in the Championship, six points from a play-off place, and at the end of the season Wallace left for West Bromwich Albion on a free transfer, having run his contract down. Now 31 years of age, he remains at The Hawthorns to this day, having made 27 appearances for the Baggies during the 2024/25 season.

But with just a year left on his original four-year contract, might Millwall be tempted to make an offer to bring him back to London in the summer of 2026? It's hardly as though they don't know him, and it's hardly as though it didn't work well for both parties the last time, either.

And would Millwall have been better off cashing in and taking the £1.5 million that Forest offered for him? Well, hindsight, they say, has 20/20 vision. But no-one at the club regrets having taken him on in the first place.