Rotherham United boss Matt Hamshaw wants to stop best players leaving on the cheap

Player of the Year Hakeem Odoffin is among a string of good players in recent times to leave at the end of their deals when he could have commanded a decent fee had he been under contract. Another player in his prime, Cameron Humphreys, also left on a free this week.

Free transfers starve the club of cash to find potential replacements or re-invest in other areas of the operation, which is something recently returned manager Matt Hamshaw is all too aware of.

“We have to get better as a club at being more pro-active,” he told the Advertiser.

"We can’t let players keep running down contracts and leaving and us getting nothing back for them.

"It is hard to implement straight away but hopefully if I am successful and I stay here then it is something I will try and implement.”

Hamshaw will need more than one transfer to shape a winning group of players from the remnants of last season’s squad, which is short on saleable assets due in part to its relatively high average age.

That will involve bringing the age down and signing operators that can be nurtured, developed and, when the time right, sold.

"It doesn’t matter who you are, clubs have to offload players, even Manchester United,” added Hamshaw.

"You have to sell players at the right time and bring players in at the right time.

"I’m probably being biased but I thought we did that really well in our tenure here previously. It probably hasn’t happened since as well as it should have done and that probably isn’t anyboy’s fault as an outsider looking in, but I think it is something we can get back to.”