'They gave rave, rave reviews' - Mahlon Romeo reveals the current Millwall duo who influenced his Portsmouth switch

The right-back has elected to take a pay cut and drop from the Championship for a season-long loan, despite starting three of the Lions’ opening five matches.

His decision was helped by Jed Wallace and Ben Thompson – whose popularity from their south-coast days has never diminished.

Wallace came through the Blues ranks before leaving in May 2015 for Wolves, while Thompson was on loan for the first half of the 2018-19 campaign.

And their glowing words about Pompey as a potential destination for Romeo proved pivotal.

The 25-year-old told The News: ‘They gave rave reviews, rave, rave reviews. They loved it here.

‘Jed was telling me where to stay, what to do, Thommo did the same as well and was obviously here more recently.

‘They came up to me saying “You are going to Pompey!”. They were excited for me.

‘I know what the Pompey fans think about Thommo, I heard them chanting his name in last month’s Carabao Cup game!

‘If they had told me it was horrible and there was nothing to do here, I would have thought about not joining.

‘But the fantastic reviews they gave helped.’

Wallace made 122 appearances and scored 30 times for Pompey, while was crowned The News/Sports Mail’s Player of the Season for 2014-15.

Now aged 27, he joined Millwall permanently from Wolves in June 2017, where he struck up an excellent partnership with Romeo down the right flank.

As for Thompson, an eternal Pompey transfer target, he scored three times in 27 appearances during a Fratton Park loan spell which ended in January 2019.

And Romeo values the opinions of both of his team-mates from The Den.

He added: ‘You can probably say there’s a key group that have been at Millwall for a while, going from League One to the Championship. Those two are definitely part of that group.

‘Just look at Jed’s numbers, he is a serious player, really, really good. I’m sure he will go higher.

‘We worked well together on the right and that kind of got us both going in our careers. He’s a proper character and I’ll miss playing with him.’

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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