Millwall boss confirms Crystal Palace keen on January deal for Romain Esse

Millwall head coach Alex Neil has confirmed Crystal Palace’s interest in Romain Esse.

Our website reported that the Lions’ 19-year-old attacking talent was a priority target in the January transfer window.

And Neil, speaking at The Den in his press conference previewing Monday’s FA Cup tie against Dagenham & Redbridge, said: “There is interest from Crystal Palace. It has been well-documented. How far down the line that is, I’m not too quite sure.

“But I think people need to recognise how well we as a club have done by securing Romain on a new contract, which took, by all accounts, a lot of convincing to stay – because he wanted to play football. He is now playing football and has certainly been one of our best performers this season.

“We don’t want to lose our best players but everyone understands the contract situation surrounding Romain. If he does move he will move for significant money which from the club perspective has been brilliant business considering we could’ve lost him in the summer (next summer) for free.

“I don’t know when and if because I am not involved in that sort of negotiation side of things, but there certainly has been interest – as there will be if you have good players.”

Esse has been linked with other Premier League clubs and also French side Monaco.

Asked by the South London Press about whether another suitor could rival the Eagles, Neil said: “The difficulty you have always got is that we, or certainly I, don’t get involved in speculation. It can be speculated that 10 different clubs are going to come in for Rom – all I do know is there has been significant interest from Crystal Palace. That is the only one I can comment on because interest and paper talk doesn’t really matter, that could be true or false.

“As far as I know right now, Crystal Palace are the main one.”

Asked how likely it is that Esse moves before the window closes, Neil said: “Again it is a difficult question to answer. I’m not involved in quickening the deal up or speeding the deal up – whatever the deal may look like.

“Rom trained yesterday. He trained today. He is in the squad for the game on Monday. As far as I know and Rom knows it is business as usual – let’s just get ourselves prepared for the match.”

PICTURE: ALAMY