For someone who has a tendency to react badly after a home defeat, Saturday’s loss to Gillingham at the Den didn’t leave me feeling too despondent.

There are a couple of factors for this: Firstly, as a self-confessed lover of Christmas, it takes more than a game of football to knock my festive spirit.

Secondly, and perhaps more crucially, the game was effectively over after 25 minutes.

Having gone a goal down early on, the Lions’ pressed the self-destruct button when a mix-up resulted in Jordan Archer bringing down Gills striker Dominic Samuel inside the box.

As the last man, there could be no arguments about Archer’s red card. David Forde unexpectedly found himself back between the sticks, but couldn’t keep out the resulting spot kick.

Although we saw a spirited performance in the second half, the Gills added a late third to collect their easiest three points of the season.

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I don’t like the phrase ‘it was their cup final’, but it’s safe to say this fixture means a lot more to our friends from Medway than it does to us.

I still find it a bit galling how the press refer to it as a local derby.

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Local means you can walk there or jump on a bus. A derby has a bit of an edge to it – West Ham or Palace for example. This fixture is neither.

But you know, no sour grapes. We didn’t play well; Gillingham did what they had to do – that about sums it up.

So as we approach the midway point of the season, how can we assess Millwall so far?

Well, aside from Saturday’s result, I think it’s fair to say we have seen a steady improvement.

I think the opening day victory against Shrewsbury sent some of us a bit giddy.

The first home fixture against Coventry certainly brought us back down to earth with a bump and I think it’s fair to say most of August was a write-off, with just one win in five in all competitions.

September’s home win against Peterborough in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy seemed to kick start a mini-revival, with the Lions losing just one of the following six.

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A nine-game unbeaten run through October and November allowed some of us to start dreaming of the play-offs again until an uncharacteristic display away at Fleetwood ended that.

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We are yet to win a league fixture in December, have been dumped out of the FA Cup but have also made it to the Johnstone’s Paint area final.

You can see how difficult it is to judge.

Providing we can pick up some points between now and January, there’s no reason to think we can’t challenge for a play-off spot.

Neil Harris is learning his trade as he goes and doing a fine job of it in my eyes. The squad could do with freshening up so it will be interesting to see what happens in the January transfer window.

But whatever happens, it’s just nice to be thinking positively again rather than looking over our shoulders at the trap door.

After a grim 2015 supporting Millwall, I’m glad to see the back of it.

So that just leaves me to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and best of luck for the New Year.

Let’s hope 2016 is a good one for us down at the Den.

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