Plymouth boss Ryan Lowe's high praise for 'fantastic' Portsmouth striker after links of missed deadline day move

The News understands the Blues forward held talks over a potential switch to Home Park yesterday.

However, with Danny Cowley keen to offload the front man, a deal to join Pompey' s League One rivals Plymouth failed to materialise.

The Pilgrims boss Lowe did not hide the fact Harrison is a player who would have 'suited Argyle down to the ground' when quizzed on the Blues striker after last night's 2-0 EFL Trophy defeat at Newport.

But he refrained from going into any detail as to whether Plymouth were pursuing a deadline day deal for the former Bristol Rovers and Ipswich man.

Speaking to PlymouthLive, Lowe said: ‘He's a fantastic player Ellis, isn't he? He wants to score more goals.

‘He scored a few goals last season, but I don't really want to talk about anyone else's player.

‘There are a lot of players we like, Ellis was one of them. I don't want to say we have tried to do this or we have tried to do that, but I think the good players who are out there and not playing, we are always interested in them.

‘We have done a lot of work on a lot of these players. Ellis is a fantastic player and would have suited Argyle down to the ground but, unfortunately, he's not my player to speak about.’

It proved to be a deadline day of near misses for Pompey's League One rivals Plymouth.

Lowe revealed a deal for a 'Championship player' and another move for an unspecified player was pulled at the last - although it remains unclear whether that could have been a possible pursuit of Harrison.

Lowe said: ‘We have been on with it all day. To be honest, we thought we had a deal done for a loan signing and then the club pulled the plug on it and said it needed to be a permanent, which we weren't happy with. We wanted a loan.

‘We had another one potentially done on loan, we agreed the monies, and then they have come back said,

‘No, the owners don't want to do it’. This is just all today.

‘We had one for a Championship player, which has been brewing for a couple of weeks, but he said he wants to stay in the Championship, which is fine.’