John Berylson praised for keeping hold of Millwall’s star men

Millwall manager Gary Rowett has praised owner John Berylson for his intent to keep hold of the club’s star performers.

Reports over the weekend claimed that Nottingham Forest were set to come back with a fresh attempt to land Jed Wallace, who is out of contract at the end of this season.

The Championship play-off chasers have had two bids rejected for the Lions attacker, the second of those thought to be in the region of £1.25million.

Rowett told the South London Press: “We want to keep our best players at the club – that’s been our stance all the way along. What happens long term, happens long term. It is brilliant of John [Berylson, owner], rather than just cash in on anyone who is out of contract he is prepared to essentially lose money to make the team as healthy as he can.

“As manager you can thank him and respect that. We wanted to try to build and improve on what we’ve got. Ollie Burke, you’ve seen in the last two performances, will get better and better. Mason [Bennett] would be like a new player if he performs like that [in the 2-0 win over West Brom] with more regularity.

“Tyler [Burey] adds something really different to the group. We’ve hopefully got Jed and Sav training this morning. Dan Ballard comes back to us Thursday, so there will be a bit of a freshness – we are still looking and trying really hard to freshen things up.

“That is kind of out of my hands. It is about us identifying targets and seeing if we can go and get one or two of them over the line.”