Royle wants to make Gerrard deal permanent

Royle plans to first extend Gerrard's loan from Everton from one month into three and then try to thrash out a permanent deal to keep the player he has known since his days as manager at Oldham.

Asked if he wanted to sign Gerrard permanently, Royle said: "We'd love to, when the time comes.

"But I'm not going to say anything more than that as, at the moment, we quite honestly couldn't afford him. He's here for an initial month and then we'll go from there. The next month and then hopefully two more are a long time.

As it stands, he's on an instant recall to Everton if they have a goalkeeping problem. But David Moyes is a great friend of mine and Bill Kenwright's very close to our chairman as well as myself."