Neil Harris believes that a mentality change is key to their turnaround this season after he outlined that he was proud of his teams dogged performance against Sheffield Wednesday.

Matt Smith opened the scoring for the Lions in the 37th minute, but moments later Jed Wallace was given his marching orders by the referee for a challenge on Owls midfielder Kieron Lee.

Going down to ten men witnessed Sheffield Wednesday heap a lot of pressure on the Lions throughout the second-half but the Lions remained resilient to see out the victory.

“That’s a Millwall result if ever you’re going to get one.” Harris said.

“You get our noses in front from a set-play in a scrappy affair between two teams that are certainly committed.

“And then the red card changes the game. Sheffield Wednesday had a lot of the ball anyway without really causing us an issue apart from Adam Reach’s, nearly, moment of genius.

“Then you go down to 10 men and you know they’re going to dominate the play, get the ball in the box. In [Steven] Fletcher and [Jordan] Rhodes, when he came on, they’ve got top players. But I would give credit to my players, that was a really strong second half.

“To stand strong against that quality of opponent, in the form they’re in as well, is impressive.

The Lions kept their formation in the second-half, as Aiden O’Brien slotted in on the left flank, to fill the void left by Wallace.

“I’m really proud of my players. When you go to 10 men there are various ways you can do it. We played Leicester here a couple of years ago in the [FA] Cup and went to a 4-3-2 and still got the ball forward. Today I felt it was important that we played in a 4-4-1, if anything to help Mahlon Romeo at right-back against Kadeem Harris.”

The win means Millwall have seven points from their opening three fixtures, an achievement which Harris believes is a result of the changed attitude in the club this season.

“I think the mentality in the group.” Harris lauded when asked about the denfensive transformation.

“Last year wasn’t a good window in August for us. It wasn’t a good August for us because there was a lot of unrest around the majority of my squad [linked with] leaving. When you start losing games, conceding late goals, it becomes a snowball effect and it’s hard to stop.

We dug in over the course of the season, regrouped over the summer, made the changes I wanted to implement. We’ve got a new group of players, a new mentality in the group. We’ve got a strength of togetherness at the club.”

We’re seeing that in the performances. We weren’t great against Preston, and again we weren’t great today in the first 40 minutes when it was 11 v 11.