Rotherham: Manager Steve Evans releases five players

Rotherham boss Steve Evans has began his preparations for next season by releasing five out-of-contract players and offering new deals to Craig Morgan and Ben Pringle.

The Millers, who signed 31 players throughout the 2014/15 Championship, have not offered fresh terms to Tony Thompson, Richard Brindley, Mat Sadler, Rob Milsom and Mark Bradley.

Former England Under-21 goalkeeper Scott Loach and midfielder Connor Newton, both under contract, have been told they are free to find new clubs.

Evans has offered new contracts to skipper Morgan and midfielder Pringle, who both had influential seasons as the Millers survived relegation in the Sky Bet Championship.

Both men have intimated they would like to stay at the club, but Morgan will only do so if his terms bring him in line with the top earners at the club.

Evans said: "It has been nothing short of a long, informative and strange sort of a day, but as always with football at this stage of the season, some tough decisions have to be made.

"It goes without exception that I would like to place on record my sincere thanks and gratitude for every Millers player who has appeared in our colours this season.

"I have in the last few minutes met with our chairman who has in turn approved in full the above decisions, and I now look forward to working with and for him as we go forward to build our squad for next season.

"I will speak later in the week about individual decisions so that our valued supporters can understand the decisions, which have been unanimous with all the football staff at first-team level."

Goalkeeper Thompson did not feature for the Millers while Sadler only played 71 minutes of a Capital One Cup game in August following a summer move from Crawley.

Brindley featured four times this campaign but spent time on loan at Scunthorpe, Oxford and Colchester while Milsom made eight appearances following injury.

Bradley has not played since suffering a serious knee injury in March 2014.