Hull City target Ollie Rathbone was left out of Rochdale’s pre-season friendly against Port Vale yesterday, as per their official Twitter page.
There was no sign of the highly-rated midfielder amid speculation the Tigers are after him.
Rathbone, who is 23 years old, has been the subject of bids from Hull, with a third one going in late last week.
Grant McCann’s side are in the hunt for another central midfielder and will be confident of bringing the Rochdale man to the KCOM Stadium now.
Rathbone started his career at Manchester United but was released by the Premier League giants in 2016. He subsequently joined fellow North West side Rochdale and has since gone onto make 111 appearances for the Dale, scoring 11 goals.
He has impressed for them over the past few seasons but could be on his way now, which would be a blow to Brian Barry-Murphy’s men this close to the start of the new campaign.
Hull have been busy since their relegation from the Championship and have brought in the likes of Lewie Coyle, Josh Emmanuel, Greg Docherty and Richard Smallwood so far this summer.
The Tigers are not stopping their recruitment there and are eager to add some more new faces to their ranks ahead of a long season ahead.
Bringing in Rathbone would give the Yorkshire side more options and depth in midfield, though looking at their squad they need to start adding more firepower in attack.
