A Six-Month Benda: The Loan Spell That Never Made Sense

A Six-Month Benda: The Loan Spell That Never Made Sense

Despite Millwall’s high-flying fifth-place standing in the Championship table, they are a side who have not been without their issues.

If you look closely at the standings, you will find that despite sitting in the coveted play-off spots, the Lions, quite remarkably, are the lowest-scoring team in the top 16, while even more bafflingly, they boast a negative goal difference, the only side in the top 10 to do so.

In large part, this is down to the issues Millwall have suffered between the sticks. Number one stopper Lukas Bornhoft Jensen has been out of the squad with an Achilles tendon injury since pre-season, and it is fair to say that Alex Neil has struggled to find a suitable solution.

Goalkeeper Steven Benda has returned to Fulham.

The club would like to thank Steven for his efforts during his loan spell and wish him the very best for the future.

— Millwall FC (@MillwallFC) January 12, 2026

Their struggles were epitomised just yesterday with the news that Steven Benda had been recalled from his loan spell at the club by Fulham.

Benda Arrives

27-year-old Benda, who hails from Germany, has been Fulham’s third-choice goalkeeper since the summer of 2023. However, he has only ever played for the Cottagers four times, with the majority of his spell spent on the bench.

That is, until his loan spell with Millwall, which commenced in July. Though many were pleased with the temporary Premier League signing, a few were less enthusiastic, citing that Benda had never managed to make the number one spot his own since he was at Swindon Town back in 2019/20.

Nevertheless, he was selected over New Zealand international Alex Crocombe to fill the void left in goal by Jensen at the start of the campaign, starting all of the Lions' first 12 competitive fixtures of the campaign.

In that time he kept four clean sheets, and won man of the match for a particularly impressive performance against Sheffield United in August, where he made a number of outstanding fingertip saves to successfully protect all three points.

It just had to be! 🧱

Your Man of the Match against Sheffield United is Steven Benda! pic.twitter.com/kWHKtfBmWW

— Millwall FC (@MillwallFC) August 26, 2025

Questions Arise

However, despite his heroics against the Blades, Millwall fans soon started to notice his shortcomings as well as his strengths. Though his clean sheet performances were special more often than not, he was far from well-rounded.

For instance, aside from his superb shot-stopping performance against Sheffield United, his save percentage actually sits second from bottom in the Championship keeper rankings at a meagre 57%.

To go hand in hand with this, we need to use the divisive XG metric (sorry to all you football puritans) - his below-par stopping meant he conceded 1.6 more goals than he would have been expected to from the attempts he made.

There are countless other supporting statistics too: he made two mistakes that led to opposition goals (bottom 2 percentile), completed just 52.4% of his passes (bottom 20 percentile), and has made a total of just 16 saves, averaging out at just 1.78 per 90 across his nine Championship starts.

Just to put the icing on the cake, fellow Millwall stopper Max Crocombe boasts the third-highest save percentage in the league at 75%, leading me to wonder what Alex Neil saw in Benda to start him for the first three months of the season. Benda is perhaps marginally better with his feet, but when comparing their shot-stopping, it’s virtually a no-contest.

Max Crocombe Save % P90- 75%. 3rd best in the Championship.

Steven Benda Save % P90 - 57%. Second lowest in the Championship .

Personally think Max gets some undeserved grief despite actually being one of the best shot stoppers in the league. He just can’t kick 😂 #Millwall https://t.co/jUp93JY2J3

— Venom (@Venom_MFC) January 11, 2026

Needless to say, the experiment didn’t last and Crocombe soon ousted Benda, making the number one spot his own. For the next 11 games, Benda was not given the slightest whiff of first-team football, and was forced to watch from the bench.

However, last Saturday’s FA Cup clash with Burnley presented him with another chance to make a case for the number one shirt as the team arrived at Turf Moor after some heavy rotation.

A Bitter Return

However, if Benda was attempting to make a case for returning to the first eleven, he fumbled his lines badly.

Burnley scored five, Benda was seen as at least partially responsible for two of the goals, and Millwall went crashing out of the FA Cup in the third round, despite making it to the quarter-finals of the same competition last year.

Worse still, Benda made enemies of his own supporters during the game. Trailing 3-0 at halftime, the Lions support was understandably giving their team pelters, and for the most part, the team absorbed them, as the second-half deficit would be a much more respectable 2-1.

Are we sure we can’t send Steven Benda back? Absolute waste of time and wages on this fraud #Millwall

— Stephen Jones (@SPJ91) January 10, 2026

However, Benda didn’t want to hear any of it. Maybe it was because he had seen some of the social media comments about his performances prior to being dropped from the side, or maybe he just genuinely didn’t enjoy playing for the club, but Benda cupped his ears to his own fans, resulting in raucous boos directed at the German.

It is no wonder then that Benda was recalled from his loan at the club just three days later, meaning he left before his relationship with the Millwall fans could sour any further.

Steven Benda recalled.

Fulham must’ve been impressed with his performance vs Burnley… 🧐

One signing which certainly hasn’t worked out, not even sure what the thought process was to begin with.

Has never established himself anywhere… 👇https://t.co/6gX4ZKSzfI pic.twitter.com/kTkmHdoO4M

— George Cole (@georgemfc1) January 12, 2026

Even without the senseless goading at the end, Benda didn’t exactly leave as a cult hero. Granted, his performance against Sheffield United was special, but his lack of presence, remarkable inconsistency, and prior record of struggling to assert himself meant that he was never likely to succeed at the Den.

In reality, it was a loan move that never made sense - he was simply never going to be good enough from the start. Now, with Crocombe in goal, Millwall stand a serious chance of staying in the promotion race, while Benda returns to Fulham at a crossroads in his career. It is unlikely his next club will be one as high up the football pyramid as the Lions.