GOOGLE COMES TO THE MILLERS’ RESCUE!
IT MAY have needed the help of Google Translate to get a deal over the line, but Rotherham finally got their man with the capture of Joel Ekstrand.
The defender left Bristol City just before the end of the transfer window and has now linked up with the Millers until the end of the season.
Ekstrand, 27, played just two games for the Robins after ending a four-year spell at Watford in the summer, but Rotherham boss Paul Warne admits he had to turn to the internet to convince the Sweden international.
“I had to Google Translate some Swedish words to try to sell him the club, which worked a treat, though I’m not sure he got the message I intended to send him,” laughed Warne.
“He is a Swedish lad, and I love Scandinavians. I think their attitude to sport is excellent.
“He wanted to come. It was all organised before the window, to be fair.
“He just had to agree his settlement with Bristol City.
“Everyone up here who has met him really likes him, and I think he will be a really positive influence in the dressing room.
“The more characters you can get like him, the better.”
Ekstrand’s current plans are to return to his native Sweden at the end of the season but Warne is hoping a spell at the New York stadium could change his mind.
“He plans to go back to Sweden and play, but if he comes here, does well and enjoys it, he might decide to stay here and have another year or so,” added Warne.
“He hasn’t played as much at Bristol City as he would have liked and I tried to sell us to him by saying ‘Don’t let the final few months in England be disappointing. Come here and fight for your place’.
He’s happy with that challenge.”