Matt Mills touts Richie Wellens for Doncaster Rovers manager's job

Mills, who featured as a pundit on Sky Sports for Rovers’ defeat to Charlton Athletic on Friday, also said he was surprised at Andy Butler’s appointment given the club’s lofty position in League One when Darren Moore departed.

Wellens, 41, recently left Salford after just four months in charge of the League Two club.

The former Rovers midfielder previously helped Swindon Town win promotion from League Two last year after cutting his managerial teeth at Oldham Athletic.

"It's a big call (appointing Andy Butler),” said Mills.

"Doncaster you would say historically are a strong League One team. Obviously they’ve had their flirtations with the Championship.

“After going on such a good run and being in such a good position, I'm really surprised they didn't go with someone a little bit more senior.

"I don’t know if the plan is in his [Butler’s] mind is to possibly look to take over next year but you look at the [manager] market at the minute and I'm certainly thinking of one former Doncaster player in Richie Wellens when I was thinking about the team I played in.

"There's a lot of good managers out there who would like to take over at Doncaster because of their style of play and the players they’ve got in the squad.”

Wellens was influential in Rovers’ promotion to the Championship under Sean O’Driscoll in 2008.

He departed for Leicester CIty a year later but returned to Rovers for a second spell under Paul Dickov in 2013.

Wellens subsequently fell out of favour following Darren Ferguson’s appointment and was allowed to leave in January 2016 prior to the cataclysmic collapse that saw Rovers relegated to League Two.

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