Rotherham boss Paul Warne has revealed that the Millers have received a bid from a Championship club for Blues’ target Matt Crooks.

On Monday it was reported that the South Yorkshiremen had rebuffed a Town offer understood to be £500,000 or £600,000 for the 27-year-old, the Blues' second bid after £400,000 had previously been rejected.

Now a Championship club has made an offer understood to be in excess of Town’s second offer.

“There has been a bid from a Championship side but it hasn’t reached the chairman’s valuation,” manager Paul Warne told the Rotherham Advertiser.

Previously Championship clubs Middlesbrough, Peterborough United, Derby County - who are currently subject to a transfer embargo - and Cardiff City were reported to be interested.

The Millers boss has previously said he’s not keen to see Crooks move on to a League One rival, but has admitted that there comes a point where it becomes impossible to turn an offer down. Rotherham are understood to have put a £1 million price tag on the midfielder's head.

A further Town bid - or bids - appear inevitable with Crooks, who has a year left on his contract, one of manager Paul Cook’s top targets and despite the Championship interest the Blues are in a strong position to get their man.

Leeds-born Crooks, who can operate either in defensive or attacking midfield roles, was a schoolboy with Manchester United’s academy before moving on to Huddersfield with whom he made one senior appearance.

While with the Terriers he spent time on loan at FC Halifax, Radcliffe Borough and Accrington before joining Stanley on a permanent basis in 2016.

In July 2016 he joined Rangers in Scotland but six months later he departed for a loan spell at Scunthorpe having been unable to make an impression at Ibrox.

A switch to Northampton followed in the summer of 2017 before he moved on to Rotherham in January 2019 and was a member of the side which won promotion to the Championship the next season, scoring both goals - out of a campaign total of 11 - in the Millers’ 2-0 victory over the Blues at Portman Road.

In 2020/21, Crooks netted seven times as the South Yorkshiremen dropped back into League One.

In March it was reported that Rotherham had held preliminary talks with Crooks regarding a new deal in the wake of the interest from Nottingham Forest.

Meanwhile, reports north of the border have dismissed claims that Hearts want to sign Blues midfielder Teddy Bishop.

According to Edinburgh Live, the 24-year-old is not a target of the Scotttish Premiership side.

Photo: Action Images

BeattiesBackPocket added 17:47 - Jul 8 Monkeyblue I get what you're saying it is going to be a high turnover of playing staff but it WAS needed they weren't playing for the club or good enough it's that simple so we needed a restructure from the top down. Neither Lambert or cook could get anything from the players we had and he knows better than anyone else on here me and too included that's probably why they're now plying their trade in league two or smaller clubs. This is the biggest job ever of any town hierarchy or manager to turn around the decline weve witnessed in the past 14 years and it was only going to get worse. Give the new people a chance the new owners are giving cool whatever he needs within budget ffp constraints if he ruins it it won't be the owners fault they've backed him fully but again you have to give all a chance before criticising EVERYTHING. You don't go to watch a film at the cinema and start saying well that was sh!t before even watching it

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BeattiesBackPocket added 17:50 - Jul 8 Monkeyblue the fact is we can't throw money at it anyway we have to work within the league one ffp restraints anyway again I get what you're saying but you have moaned about not getting top players in then now moaning about we shouldn't at the moment be throwing everything at it!? the new guys cannot win either way with you
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therein61 added 17:51 - Jul 8 Can't blame Rotherham for using our interest as an effort to hike up other bidders, time to forget and move on for us.
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bluearmy78 added 17:58 - Jul 8 PW doesn't want him to sign for a L1 rival, Crooks won't sign a new deal at Rotherham as he wants to play in the Championship? Now if we've made 2 bids, Crooks is well aware of what's going on so if he wasn't interested in playing for us surely he would of said he doesn't want to join us. I bet we can offer him a good contract, we just need to agree on a fee for him, I know we're a L1 side but with the new ownership and management we are an attractive club to sign for. Let's get this deal done! COYB

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Rootshall91 added 17:58 - Jul 8 We won't get all our first choice signings. Ashton will know better than us what a fair valuation for this player is. Sounds like we're in sensible hands to me. There are other players out there.
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Ipswichbusiness added 17:58 - Jul 8 There are three parties to a deal; the buying club, the selling club and the player. Now if you are a player aged 27 with one year on your contract, who will you go to? You could go to a Championship side like Blackpool which has half the ground capacity of ours (and hence the limited financial resources) or you could go to a club like ours and be paid more.
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RegencyBlue added 18:49 - Jul 8 Walk away from this one. Rotherham are trying to hold us to ransom and we need players in sooner rather than later. I'm sure Ashton has a plan B so let's get on with that.
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Marinersnose added 19:13 - Jul 8 This signing sounded about as promising as Connolly and Wyke. We need to sign a striker who will score goals as this has been our failure for two seasons in division 3. We have loanee Bonne but he's not a goalscorer. I'm puzzled as to who we are trying to sign. This is as expected a long drawn out procedure of identifying and signing players before pre season. Well we have signed some decent players but as it stands PC will be going back to last seasons failing players who haven't moved on and who he more or less cast aside as not good enough. Can't wait for the new season but I'm concerned about lack of players incoming. It is vital that we have a strong start.

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runningout added 19:16 - Jul 8 Maybe just one more cheeky bid :-)
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timkatieadamitfc added 19:22 - Jul 8 Don't want us to get fleeced but if we've had 1m off Dozzell sale why didn't we just go straight in with an 800k bid to get the deal done quick, we would still be up in terms of money in and got a player who is better in this league than Dozzell, if Rotherham had turned that bid down we should have just said take it or leave it and moved on
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ArnieM added 19:27 - Jul 8 I'd forgotten Warne was a narwich dick. This explains a lot now. Town is the last place he wants Crooks to end up. Go and make this happen Ashton …., 👍
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KiwiTractor added 20:13 - Jul 8 I was hoping we would have a few more players in the door by now - the problem being that any arrivals from now on won't get a full pre-season in, and we'll start the season behind the eight ball...
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Dog added 20:28 - Jul 8 If we do not have the money and wage structure for Crooks, we will go for Plan B, Richie Smallwood. Need players fast now as they need to get fit (the Paul Cook way) and get a pre season.
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Nobbysnuts added 20:52 - Jul 8 Well it's either a bit of bullsh#t from their chairman trying to push our bid up or its true.. ill go for the bullsh#t option.
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Monkey_Blue added 22:31 - Jul 8 BeattiesBackPocket. Excuse me, when have I moaned about “not getting top players in”?. At this level we either need KVYs preferably without the injuries or a great coach who can look at the players and know what tweaks are needed. Mass squad turnover is neither. Cook is like a few GF's I've had, great from a distance, delighted to get them…. Quickly realise why they were single.

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ringwoodblue added 23:15 - Jul 8 As I said before, this situation is not going in our favour so we must move on and turn our attention to another target as the new season is just around the corner and we need time to allow all these new players to gel as a team. I just don't think we can start the new season with just Norwood and Bonne as our only strikers - hopefully Ashton is working on at least one new addition upfront like Pigott or C Bishop.

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EatonBlue added 00:28 - Jul 9 Waste of time trying to do business with Budgie Warne.
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grinch added 06:44 - Jul 9 Think we just need to get more deals completed the very light squad has been back training for a while and the numbers don't seem to stack up for 1st team playing staff. Might require a bit of humble pie eating by PC to bring players back from the U23s so that we can actually field a team
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bluesteel added 07:32 - Jul 9 appears the new start promised by the takeover is hitting the buffers cook shot himself in the foot declaring a whole squad was rubbish, and now can't find players to sign up to his new vision what a surprise and with players who have knowledge of cook and richardson deciding to join wigan cook looks more and more out of his depth if you want to see what the new project should look like follow wigan next season and we're hardly likely to add to the squad offering £400k to a rival for a key player

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BeattiesBackPocket added 07:59 - Jul 9 Monkeyblue yet again pick out of what I said what you want to reply to as you have no answers for anything else but yet again bashing cook based on last season when he was working with a poor team and squad now mostly in league two both him and Lambert got nothing out of under lambert finishing 11th! It's utter bull that it only needed tweaks in most peoples opinions accept yours and a handful of others. Tell me one former player Magilton de vos any of those players would they have come off laughing after losing at home to the bottom team?? Not one of the many players in the past would've and that's was under lambert so what exactly was cook suppose to do with that?? We needed change from the top not TWEAKS as you put it that's a FACT and most peoples opinions apart from yours.

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Linkboy13 added 09:46 - Jul 9 Bearing in mind Crook's is reportedly meant to be Cook's biggest target in the transfer market we are not going about getting the deal done in an ideal way. Making an offer of four hundred thousand and then six hundred thousand dosent suggest you rate the player that highly. A million pounds dosent sound a lot of money to me when you way up his all round capabilities and his performances in the championship. If we are going to get out of league one that's the sort of money we have got to invest im afraid. But i fear this deal might now be dead in the water. So come on Town let's show a little more ambition.

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brendenward35 added 10:34 - Jul 9 bluesteel totally agree with you on all counts as I said PC is going to struggle to get players in when his treated the other players as he has. If I was looking to move jobs I'd be very careful who my bosses were and if they were known to tell all the staff they were rubbish I'd look at something different. Back room staff (coaches) didn't fill me with confidence either kit man for a coach when he preferred to be a kit man was my first concern. Things get off to a bad start PC won't last long Ashton won't take excuses.

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Razor added 10:41 - Jul 9 This is pathetic and I am wondering whether us fans have in fact been taken for a ride. If we really wanted this guy we should have offered proper money in the first place and just got him----I thought that this takeover now allowed us to do that? We have signed a lot of guys I dont know and have let Charlie Wyke slip through our hands---I am not at all convinved at the moment-----Is Joe Piggot still available or that guy from Camb Utd?

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Monkey_Blue added 10:57 - Jul 9 BeattiesBackPocket. You are pathetic, it doesn't matter what I say you will vote me down and not justify it. You need to stop being a snowflake and argue the point.
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Monkey_Blue added 10:59 - Jul 9 You marked me down and yet half of your speil we possibly agree on. Grow up
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