What Neil Warnock told ex-Aston Villa striker Rudy Gestede ahead of Middlesbrough departure and Stoke City clash

The towering frontman will see his contract at the Riverside end on June 30 but wasn’t prepared to sign a short-term agreement which would have allowed him to complete the season in July.

Gestede would have been available for Saturday’s 2-0 win at Stoke, yet it was announced an hour before kick-off that he had left the club.

Daniel Ayala has also left Boro after choosing not to play beyond the end of his contract, while the Teessiders have five other players who are nearing the end of their current deals.

Marvin Johnson, Ryan Shotton, Jonny Howson, George Friend and Adam Clayton will all be out of contract next week but were all in the matchday squad to face Stoke.

Warnock is hopeful all five will be able to finish the season at Boro, but says he's had a lot on his plate after arriving at the club on Tuesday.

When asked about Gestede's departure and Boro’s other out of contract players in his post-match press conference via Zoom, Warnock said: “To be fair I’ve had so much on my mind. Rudy came to me and I had a good chat with Rudy, I wanted him to stay obviously.

“He said he wasn’t prepared to do that so I said you might as well go home, I sent him off on Thursday. There was no point in anything else.

“The other lads I’ve spoken to most of them but I’m not really 100 per cent so you’ll have to ask me next week about that.”

When quizzed on Gestede again during his interview with BBC Tees Sport, Warnock replied: “I had a chat with him and he was adamant he didn’t want to risk anything with his contract being up so I cleared him off on Thursday.

“I just said go home now, he said ‘no I can’t because I’m under contract’, but I said ‘yes you can I give you permission’, off you go and that’s it.”