Millwall let prolific striker slip through their fingers – he racked up £16m in transfer fees

Millwall let prolific striker slip through their fingers – he racked up £16m in transfer fees

Lewis Grabban will be remembered as one of the greatest strikers the division has ever seen, having scored more

than 150 goals in the Championship, League One, and League Two.

However, even if that might be the prevailing opinion, it really depends on whose fans you ask.

Grabban played for eleven different English clubs, from Norwich City and Bournemouth in the Premier League to

Rotherham United in League Two. As a result, over the course of his career, the frontman has accrued transfer fees.

He paid £3 million to join Norwich City from Bournemouth, £7 million when he was re-signed by the Cherries two

and a half years later, and £6 million after moving from the Vitality Stadium to Nottingham Forest in 2018. These

were the three most notable prices.

Grabban was unquestionably worth the money for both Norwich and Forest, at least, and had successful seasons at

all three of those clubs (albeit his greatest days at Bournemouth occurred during his first spell).

However, the striker couldn’t manage to hit the goal as frequently as he would later be known to do at Millwall when

he was still in his early 20s and rising through the ranks.

Lewis Grabban couldn’t hit the ground running at Millwall

Millwall spent just £150,000 to bring a then-20-year-old Grabban to The Den in 2008. Grabban had played just 23

minutes of Championship football for the Eagles in the first half of that season, and spent a period on loan at

Motherwell, too.

A young, raw talent, then-manager Kenny Jackett would have hoped that a drop-down to League One could help

boost his output, but Grabban scored just three times in 13 third-tier games, which included 10 starts, and didn’t

make the team in seven of the last nine games.

Despite this, Jackett still persisted with Grabban to begin the 2008/09 season, and the frontman repaid his faith

with three goals in the opening five league games, followed by another three in nine as Millwall ended October inside

the top two.

Those six were the only league goals Grabban scored that campaign, however, and by the end of the season, he was

once again in and out of the squad, starting just one of the final four and playing just 26 minutes across both legs of

their play-off semi-final win over Leeds United.

Grabban did, in fact, start in the play-off final, playing just over an hour as Millwall fell to Scunthorpe United, losing

3-2. The Lions would find success in the play-offs the season after, but Grabban had little to do with it, playing just 11

times in the league and failing to make the squad for both the semi-final’s second leg and the final.

He would be loaned to Brentford at the beginning of the 2010/11 season, which turned into a free transfer in January

2011.

Millwall were left scratching their heads as Lewis Grabban became a solid EFL striker

In the 2011–12 season, Grabban found himself moving to then-League Two team Rotherham because League One

was still too difficult for him. He soon made a name for himself as a reliable threat who could score ten goals per

season.

His career took off after that one season in South Yorkshire. He scored at least 12 league goals for four seasons,

including 22 for Bournemouth in the 2013–14 season, which led to Norwich making his first high-profile acquisition.

His career stalled a little in the Premier League, but by that time, he’d already amassed £10 million in transfer

fees. Millwall would have been left a little confused not only at the fact he was frequently getting seven-figure bids for

him, but that he was playing in the Premier League at all.

Following a couple of productive loan stints at Sunderland and Aston Villa in the 2017–18 season, during which he

scored 21 league goals overall, he moved to Forest for £6 million, which increased his total fees while also ensuring

that he remained a deadly goal scorer in the league.

After playing 70 games for Millwall and scoring 11 goals, Grabban retired. He only played 13 games with Crystal

Palace, where he had the worst goal-per-game ratio.

The fact that he was unable to succeed at The Den and that they were unable to make such a big profit for his services

will always irritate Millwall.

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