BLACKBURN Rovers are running the rule over Frenchman Charles-Edouard Coridon.

The 31-year-old arrived in England from his club Lens for a trial over the weekend, as Rovers manager Graeme Souness considers adding the stylish midfield man to his squad.

Coridon has also been a recent target for Celtic and played for them in their 2-0 friendly win over Spurs two weeks ago.

But Rovers are still hopeful of capturing Norwegian wide man Morten Gamst Pedersen, and have made another offer to his club Tromso.

Meanwhile, skipper Barry Ferguson is facing a one-match suspension in the wake of Saturday's controversial 3-2 defeat at Southampton.

Ferguson was shown two separate yellow cards in the final 10 minutes of the game at the St Mary's Stadium but referee Andy D'Urso failed to produce a red after issuing the second caution and the Scotland skipper stayed on the pitch to complete the remainder of the match.

Now D'Urso is likely to be hauled before the FA to explain his oversight and Ferguson is almost certainly facing a retrospective one-match ban.

Confusion reigned in the aftermath of the game, so much so that Rovers boss Graeme Souness didn't realise that Ferguson had been booked once, never mind twice.

However, the referee's report clearly stated that Ferguson WAS booked in the 80th minute for 'unsporting behaviour' and the same player was then cautioned again in the 90th minute for delaying the restart after D'Urso had awarded Southampton a controversial late penalty.

D'Urso refused to speak to the press after the match but he did admit that he had made a mistake and both he and Ferguson are now likely to feel the consequences.

When questioned about the incident, Souness said: "I didn't even know Barry had been booked once."

In the meantime, Souness felt aggrieved by the Saints' late penalty award and he also said Rovers should have had a spot-kick themselves when Paul Dickov appeared to be dragged to the floor by James Beattie but a foul wasn't given.

"I don't want to speak about referees because the more I comment about them, the less we seem to get," said Souness.

"It's well documented that last year we didn't get one penalty so I'm not going to talk about the referee.

"Paul said he was pushed as he was about to shoot and you saw his reaction afterwards."

Souness was also disappointed with the way his side conceded two of the three goals.

"To be fair, Beattie does cause havoc in your goalmouth. Nissa Johansson was going for a ball and Craig Short came over thinking he was going to win it so the three of them all went for the ball and it left little Kevin Phillips free.

"Then for the second goal the ball went out towards the corner flag and the golden rule of defending is to make sure he's not going to turn me, beat me or cross the ball into the box.

"But Michael Gray was guilty of not defending that very well."