MILLWALL boss Neil Harris isn’t ruling out the possibility of making loan signings to boost the Lions’s promotion chances next season.
But he emphasised that the club’s focus is on securing long-term deals.
His predecessor, Ian Holloway, staked the club’s Championship survival on a number of loan deals last January but the strategy failed to pay off despite the Premier League experience brought by players such as Jos Hooiveld, Gary Taylor-Fletcher and Michael Tonge.
Perhaps mindful of that failed approach, Harris stressed that any potential short-term deals would only be to cover sudden emergencies or used to assess a player’s suitability to joining on a more permanent basis.
“Ideally, at this stage, we’re definitely looking at permanent signings,” he said. “A year-long loan is almost like signing a player on a one-year contract. I’m not against doing that sort of thing, but short-term loans have got to be for the benefit of the club.
“If it’s a short-term fix it’s because we’re trying to improve what we’ve got. We might need to look at a shorter deal because of injuries or suspensions, things like that.
“I’d always look at a short-term deal with a view to something longer, so it’s a good opportunity for us to look at someone we want to sign. It can’t be a loan just to make up the numbers.
“That’s sometimes been the case but we want to come away from that, we want our own players, we want Millwall players.”