‘That could be goodbye’ – Millwall boss Rowett on Jed Wallace’s reaction to travelling fans

Millwall manager Gary Rowett is unsure whether today’s 1-0 defeat at Bournemouth was Jed Wallace’s farewell display.

The Lions attacker seemed emotional as he applauded the away fans at the final whistle.

Nottingham Forest saw a couple of bids for the 28-year-old rejected in the January transfer window. Wallace is out of contract this summer.

Asked if that was Wallace saying his goodbyes to the travelling Millwall support, Rowett said: “I don’t know. I think it’s him saying there is a possibility of that. He’s earned the right with his performances, over a long period of time. He’s earned the right to have options in the summer. He’s a top-quality Championship player who, I know, can play at different levels of the game.

“He’ll have options. It’s up to him. He has to make whatever he thinks is the right decision for him and his family. I think he loves the club and he loves the fans. I think it will be a difficult decision. The chances are he might not be here next season. If he is, fabulous – that’s one less problem to worry about. But if he’s not then big boots to fill.

“Good luck to him. I gave him a big hug in there – he’s been fabulous for me. Whatever he does will be the right decision for him. He has got Premier League quality and, on a free transfer, there will be a hell of a lot of teams looking at him. The challenge for us, is they are not easy to replace. What you don’t want to do is be weaker after the season we’ve just had – you want to be stronger.

“We’re going to lose quite a lot of quality from our team this summer – potentially the likes of Jed, Benik, Burkey, people like that.

“I don’t think they are easy to replace for us. We’ve got a little bit of room to manoeuvre. I’ve said it before, we have to make good signings this summer. We have to work incredibly hard. We’ve changed the way we recruit a little bit. We need to get players in as quick as we can, so we can work with them all of pre-season and that’s our biggest challenge – we’ll all work incredibly hard to do that.”