'Emotional' Curtis Tilt makes loan return to Rotherham United after recall from Wigan Athletic

Tilt joined the Latics for a third loan spell at the end of August, having failed to establish himself during his time at Rotherham since arriving for an undisclosed fee from Blackpool in January 2020.

The deal had an option enabling the Millers to recall the centre-half by a cut-off point of January 15, with the club electing to activate the clause, putting the immediate future of the 30-year-old in limbo.

Warne said: "He is understandably a bit emotional at the moment. We have had a couple of conversations and whether Wigan attempt to buy him, I don't know.

"If he is going to stay here then I will use him, I'm not stupid, if he is in the best three centre halves, he will play.

"I can't honestly say where his future lies, whether it will be at Wigan or he will be pushing my players out of the way to get in the team here, I don't honestly know.

"He has only been in the building a day. We will know in the next couple of weeks, it could honestly go in any direction. I am not trying to be misleading, I don't know.

"The club decided to pull him back as his loan window (recall deadline) was this Saturday, so they have made a decision beforehand to pull him back and re-evaluate like Jerry (Yates) a couple of years ago and see where we go from there."

On the prospects of Tilt leaving permanently if a suitable bid was received, Warne added: "Yes, if an offer came in that met the chairman's approval.

"There is an option he can play for us and an option that his career can be somewhere else.

"Now, he is in the building, we have control of it and if we'd left it until after the 15th, we'd have had no control. It is more about that he is our player and the football club have control of his destiny."

Tilt is contracted with Rotherham until the summer of 2023.