‘We want to build more long term’ – Millwall boss on how he sees final day of transfer window

Gary Rowett has outlined how he sees the final day of the January transfer window breaking down from a Millwall perspective.

The Lions have made moves for a number of players this month and seen bids rejected for the likes of Derby County’s Louie Sibley, Fortuna Sittard’s Zian Flemming and FC Utrecht’s Bart Ramselaar.

Millwall manager Rowett told the South London Press: “Our intention, this whole window, has been to freshen things up a little bit.

“Getting one or two players playing regular football has always been the plan. Smudge [Matt Smith] and Jon Dadi [Bodvarsson] were always part of that plan. Those two have gone out to play regular football – there may be one more to do that, if something works and drops for them.

“The aim was to get two or three bodies in. The Jed [Wallace] situation has rumbled on for three or four weeks, which hasn’t been particularly helpful – because the speculation does affect the group. That isn’t Jed’s fault, but it does affect the group. We’ve wanted to keep Jed here.

“We’re still looking to strengthen. We’ve put a lot of competitive offers in for young players who we feel will make us better long term. What I was reluctant to do this window was just bring three or four older loan players in to patch up. I don’t see there is any point – we’ve done that too often.

“What we really want to do is build a little bit more long term.

“Sometimes you can do it and sometimes you can’t. It’s better to try and do something for the right reasons than do something in a blind panic on the last day of the window – I don’t think the club have done that too often in the past.

“I don’t see us doing that today unless one or two of the targets we’ve got have dropped.”