BREAKING: Shaun McWilliams leaves Cobblers to sign for Rotherham United

The 25-year-old is out of contract at Sixfields this summer, and although he was offered a new deal by the Cobblers he has opted to leave the club and head for south Yorkshire.

Rotherham, who are managed by former Peterborough United, Leeds United and Stevenage boss Steve Evans, were relegated from the Championship earlier this month.

Evans returned to take over the reins at the New York Stadium last month, and is known to be a long-time admirer of McWilliams.

A combative midfielder, McWilliams is a product of the Cobblers Academy and made his debut from the bench as a 17-year-old in a 1-1 draw at Rochdale back in April, 2017.

He went on to make 187 starts for his hometown club as well as making 42 substitute appearances, scoring seven goals.

In recent years he has endured a couple of serious injury setbacks, suffering knee and Achilles problems, and he found himself in and out of the side last season, making 23 starts and a further 16 substitute appearances.

Speaking to the Chron in March, McWilliams said he didn’t want to leave Sixfields, saying: "We’ll just see how things go but there always conversations going on in the background.

"I think myself and the club both know where we stand and I’m not in a place where I want to leave so we’ll see how it plays out.”

It has played out with McWilliams leaving the club, and Town boss Jon Brady paid tribute to the player saying he has been 'an excellent servant' to the club.

"We wish Shaun well in his future career," said the Cobblers boss. "He has been an excellent servant to Northampton Town and we part on good terms.

"We wish him all the best, apart from when he plays against us of course!

“From our point of view, we now move on and focus on some of the targets we are looking to bring to the club and our work in that area is ongoing.”

McWilliams is the first of the players offered new contracts at the end of the season to turn the Cobblers down.

Fellow midfielder Ben Fox and goalkeeper Lee Burge last week put pen to paper on theirs and committed their futures to the club.

Those who have been offered deals but are still to make their intentions known are defenders Jordan Willis and Sam Sherring and striker Louis Appéré.