‘I get some agent calls’ – Joe Edwards on his involvement in Millwall’s transfer window business

Joe Edwards is using his extensive coaching experience to help compile background information on Millwall’s transfer targets.

The Lions’ activity in the window will be overseen by Alex Aldridge, their director of football operations and recruitment.

But that does not prevent Edwards, appointed head coach in November, from being approached by agents.

“I get some calls – but Alex gets far more than me,” Edwards told the South London Press. “More of my dialogue is with people at clubs – I’ve got a lot more of a network in the coaching world than I have in the agent world.

“If I’ve got former colleagues at a Premier League club or elsewhere that are working with players that are potentially on our radar then I can ask for a reference or get some heads up on who might be available.

“I definitely have an involvement in speaking to people but Alex is definitely the person who does the majority of the networking.

“Then it simply works that we sit together, very often, and speak about where we are at with our team – where we want to strengthen and then what does that look like?

“If we are talking about a particular area of the pitch or position then what really is the profile we’re looking for? Then between Alex and the team of scouts he heads up, they dig into the database, keep looking and then they come back to us as a coaching team with some information and some video on potential targets.

“Any that catch our eye we start digging deeper and looking into it.

“Now that January is open the talks start progressing with certain leads and we see where we go.”

Millwall have won three in a row to ease fears of being dragged into the Championship relegation fight.

So does that make it easier to attract new players?

“I’m unsure really because when players make a decision to move there are loads of different aspects to their process,” said Edwards. “You could definitely argue that if a team were rock bottom in January and not playing well at all that it isn’t a particularly glamourous prospect to jump into.

“But, at the same time, you can look at players who want to come and make a really big impact. All of a sudden we’ve had a settled team and players could be questioning whether they will come and get a lot of game time. So it is probably a bit of swings and roundabouts.”