Good to sell Ward?

By Micky Monsoon
May 31 2005

New chairman Jeff Burnige has had to make some brave decisions, but some would say selling Ward to Palace was foolhardy. But if indeed the Eagles were prepared to cough up the most cash, does it not make sense to sell to the highest bidder?

A lot of fans are up in arms because it's Palace, but the main issues I have with Millwall as a selling club is that we seem to be everyone's favourite bucket shop.

We sell five star players at discount rates.

Teams like Forest get relegated but sell a couple of players (Reid and Dawson) for £7m, while we get less than £2m upfront.

Ifill and Ward are admittedly slightly older, but Ward has yet to reach his peak and has previous Premiership experience.

Only in terms on international experience could Reid and Dawwon be considered superior.

Ward's not an international yet, and may never become one given the amount of good centre backs in this country, while Ifill plays international football for Barbados.

My only question is why must we always sell on the cheap?

Not just now, but always.

Cahill went too cheaply. Likewise "our" Reid and Lucas Neill.

Now we hear rumours that Peter Sweeney might join Stoke on a fee to be decided at a tribunal.

Again, another bargain for a rival Championship club caused by us not tying the winger down to a longer-term deal. Short-sighted or what?

It's beginning to look like Burnige has inherited a mess and as a true Millwall fan he can't be enjoying selling our best players.

But it would be nice if we could hold out for top dollar for our top players - but then again, that's never been the Millwall way!

At least on the playing front we've got a developing central defender in Paul Robinson and Mark Phillips is a good prospect too.

So maybe we'll be alright in that department.

Only problem is we can't field 11 youngsters and expect to get promotion, no matter how good they are.

And our squad was too thin to maintain a promotion challenge this season, so can we expect more next season?

Yes, more disappointments - unless the youngsters can perform miracles week in week out.

Probably, it's too big an ask!