WANDERERS have had a record bid for Bristol Rovers striker Nathan Ellington turned down by the West Country club.o

Blues boss Lawrie Sanchez was prepared to shatter the club's transfer record to bring the 19-year-old hot shot to Adams Park but was given short shrift by the Pirates, who rate him in the million pound bracket.

The Wycombe boss said: "We made an offer for him which would have substantially broken what we have ever paid for anyone before but they decided that they wanted to keep him.

"I think he's got a lot of potential, but so do they, and they want a seven figure fee for him."

Wanderers relegated Rovers to the basement division in May and Bristol see Ellington, who scored 17 times last season, as their best hope of getting back into Division Two at the first attempt.

Sanchez suffered a second setback this week when he also conceded defeat in his bid to make Reading reject Jim McIntyre his first summer signing.

The Wycombe manager is an admirer of the 29-year-old Scottish forward, who can also play wide on the left, but the two were a long way apart when it came to discussing personal terms this week.

McIntyre's agent Ray Sparkes said: "Wycombe expressed an interest in Jim and I spoke to Lawrie about him but there wasn't enough common ground for us to go forward."

Four years ago McIntrye cost Reading £420,00 when he moved from Kilmarnock to the Thames Valley and the free agent is now mulling over offers from Rotherham, Oxford, Swindon and Motherwell after pricing himself out of Adams Park.

But the Blues boss was not prepare to enter a wages war in a bid to sign him.

He said: "He was on big money when he was at Reading and he wanted to maintain that and is substantially more than we can afford to pay him."

And Sanchez hit out at Wycombe's band of internet fans who have been criticising him on the web for Wanderers' lack of signings so far this summer.

He said: "The fans have got to be patient. If they think I have been sitting at home sunbathing then they should come and sit here with me and see how busy I've been.

"I'm not one of those managers that goes in for putting it in the paper every time I speak to someone because it just alerts other clubs, but I can assure them that there is a lot of work going on. I've spoken to a lot of players and agents and I am still doing that.

"The fans have got to be confident in my ability to bring the right players to the club. We have a lean and mean squad of 21 who can all play in the first team and I want to bring in two or three more players to add to that.

"I could sign three people tomorrow just to keep the fans happy but I would rather make sure that we sign people who are going to improve us."

But the Blues boss did reveal that there could be one or two triallists on show when the players report back for pre-season training including a player from Cameroon.