For sale ... Rotherham United open to letting Curtis Tilt go for good

The centre-half has just begun his third loan spell at Wigan Athletic and Millers boss Paul Warne has confirmed the 30-year-old would be allowed to leave if the right bid came in.

Tilt’s time at AESSEAL New York Stadium has been blighted by injuries and he has made only one Rotherham appearance since his £100,000 switch from Blackpool in January 2020.

The Millers would be prepared to sell the player, who has a contract until the summer of 2023, to League One rivals Wigan or another club putting enough cash on the table.

Warne stressed that all his players have prices on their heads and speaking specifically about Tilt he said: “He’s gone out to Wigan and if he does really well and they want to speak to me about a permanent deal then we are open to anything.

“If someone offered us money that was sufficient for him then he would be out of the door. But if someone did that for, say, Ben Wiles then so would he.”

Tilt had pushed for his deadline-day return to the Latics, where he did well in two spells in the 2020/21 campaign.

He failed to break into the Rotherham team this term after missing the whole of pre-season with a hamstring pull picked up on summer international duty with Jamaica.

“Curtis is desperate to play and I can’t knock him for that,” Warne said.

“My three at the back were doing really well and I had no reason to change things, so he wanted to go back out on loan. It wasn’t what I wanted to happen, but I have to manage the group and the player.

“I thought he did really well for Wigan at the end of last season and I was looking forward to working with him in the summer.

“It was his opportunity to stake a claim for the shirt but then he  got injured on international duty and he was out for months.

“He was a substitute in the last game of the transfer window but his mind was already on playing somewhere else. I rate him as a player and I like him as a lad. He is athletic and strong in the air.”

A hip operation soon after his arrival restricted Tilt to a solitary start at Rochdale in his first Millers season while nearly all of last term, with Rotherham in the Championship and preferring other centre-halves, was spent at the DW Stadium. Then his hamstring issue cost him his chance to fight for his place under Warne.

“If he hadn’t got injured this summer and he’d played better than the other three then he would have been in the side and content,” the boss said.

“If Curtis had been in our team every week and Wigan wanted him on loan, I would have stood in his way a little bit. I sent him all the best when he went.”

Tilt is thought to favour a full move to the Latics and recently liked a post on Twitter from an Athletic supporter suggesting the two club should stop playing ‘Hokey Cokey’ and get the transfer done.

“It doesn’t surprise me,” Warne said. “On social media, he is going to promote himself.”