Wolves miss out as Newton plumps for Rotherham

It's understood the 22-year-old midfielder believes he will have a better chance of regular first-team football with the Millers, who have his former Toon team-mates James Tavernier and Haris Vuckic at New York Stadium.

"Arguably the kid could have gone to a bigger club on paper, whether that's Wolverhampton or Birmingham or Millwall," said Rotherham boss Steve Evans.

"We amongst others, the likes of Wolves, Millwall and Birmingham were always in with a chance of him.

"But I think Conor was used to playing though from being up at St Mirren on loan.

"And one of the things he was keen to do is play, and with the coaching staff here we want to give him game time, develop him and improve him."

Newton's representative Spencer Downey said the player agreed the move before learning the fate of the Millers in the final, where they play Leyton Orient at Wembley on Sunday.

"He wanted to demonstrate the belief in those at Rotherham and show how much he'd tapped into the ambition at the New York Stadium. This is a great move for him," said Downey.

Evans added: "We said if we don't make it on Sunday, we'll be improving again next season.

"We sold him the opportunity to come and play football.

"I first became aware of Conor when watching Newcastle's Under-21 side.

"I always felt he had a real chance.

"We followed his progress when he went up to St Mirren.

"And he had an excellent season and a bit up there and we were watching with interest.

"I think perhaps he has seen how well James Tavernier and Haris Vuckic have done and how we are as a club and how we're run.

"We try to develop the players and that helped Conor make the decision over the five or six options he had."

Newton was one of several targets of Wolves head coach Kenny Jackett, who is interested in Peterborough's out-of-contract left-sided player Tommy Rowe among others.

Wolves have announced a final away pre-season friendly, at Peterborough on Tuesday, July 22 (7.45pm).