Millwall boss gives his reaction to claims he held talks over loan deal for Everton winger Yannick Bolasie

Millwall manager Gary Rowett says he never held talks over signing former Crystal Palace winger Yannick Bolasie.

There were rumours that the 31-year-old Everton player was on the Lions’ radar before last Friday’s transfer deadline.

And northern-based media reported that Millwall held talks over a loan deal for Bolasie.

“No, we didn’t,” said Rowett, when asked about that claim. “It was a conversation someone had with me: ‘Would we be interested in Yannick Bolasie?’. I didn’t feel as though we’d be able to come close to where that deal might be at.

“We were after that type of pacey, powerful player at the top end of the pitch in those front three areas. We wanted to get someone who could add that little extra.

“It shows when Mason Bennett is out that we’re a little bit short of that type of player. You saw that on the bench on Saturday, we didn’t have that many attacking options because all of them were on the pitch apart from Jon Dadi [Bodvarsson].

“We thought it would be really, really important to add that kind of player.”

Middlesbrough manager Neil Warnock wanted to sign Bolasie – and appeared to blame the ex-Eagles player for a temporary switch to Teesside not happening.

Bolasie will remain on the Toffees books until at least January.

“I’m disappointed that we didn’t get him, but that’s life,” he told The Northern Echo on Saturday. “There were numerous things that happened in the afternoon, and it just wasn’t meant to be. I’m disappointed, but you have to move on and we’ll see what happens now.

“He was disappointed, but he was partly to blame as well. There were things I should have known before four o’clock yesterday afternoon about his problems at Everton. They were problems that we couldn’t overcome. Well, we tried to, and eventually we did, but it was too late.

“I’ve asked him why I didn’t know about those problems beforehand. He said, ‘Well, I told my agent’, but I said, ‘Well why didn’t the bloody agent tell us that?’ The agent was talking to Neil (Bausor) quite a lot – he should have come up with these problems, not at four o’clock.”