CHAIRMAN Eddie Mitchell has defended the sale of Josh McQuoid by claiming the striker indicated he wanted to leave Dean Court.

Mitchell and the Cherries board rejected two offers for McQuoid from Millwall before reluctantly accepting a third following discussion with the player.

McQuoid yesterday completed a loan move to the Championship outfit with the deal to be made permanent once the transfer window has re-opened in January.

Although neither club has been prepared to reveal the fee involved, Mitchell described it as “modest”, while Millwall’s second bid was believed to have been for £350,000.

McQuoid, a second product of the club’s youth ranks to be sold in the past three months, is understood to have seen his weekly wage rocket by almost 600 per cent.

News of Millwall’s interest was revealed on the Daily Echo website in the early hours of Wednesday after Lions boss Kenny Jackett had watched him during Cherries’ 2-0 win over Yeovil.

McQuoid, who started only 24 games for Cherries, shot to prominence following the departure of Brett Pitman who was sold to Bristol City for £550,000 in August.

He had hit 12 goals in 16 starts this season – including back-to-back hat-tricks – with his scoring exploits also earning him a first full international cap with Northern Ireland.

Millwall beat off several other clubs for his services, with Reading and Swansea believed to have been among them.

Mitchell told the Daily Echo: “We had a third bid late on Wednesday and both Eddie (Howe) and myself decided it would be best if Josh were to stay with us. Out of courtesy, Eddie, I believe, phoned Josh and spent a long time talking to him about the future. I believe Eddie asked Josh what his thoughts were and his thoughts were that he wanted to go now.

“Although his decision was very much to mine and Eddie’s disappointment, I believe it was the correct thing to do to let him go.

“In my opinion, we want people who want to play for the club and who want to help the club be successful. Josh always gave us his best and was fantastic for us. He decided now would be a better time to move than later.

“Had we not agreed to let him go, we would have run the risk of going to a tribunal and, with him not wanting to sign a new contract with us, we really had nowhere to go but to accept the offer.”

Asked whether the deal was good for the club, Mitchell replied: “Not really. We would rather have kept him and had him continue to play for us for another year or so. Then, we would have stood a better chance of winning promotion and maybe got four times as much for him sometime in the future.”

Mitchell, who said the fee would be paid in stage payments, added: “We’re trying to build a club and Eddie is trying to build a team. We’re trying to put the club on the map but have still got a long way to go. Until we get there, there is always going to be pressure to let players go because they can earn bigger wages elsewhere. In years to come, maybe, one day we will become less of a selling club and more of a buying one.”