EWOOD chief Graeme Souness today admitted he may have to sell players before he can move for long-time transfer target David Thompson.

As we exclusively revealed at the start of the summer, Souness would like to add the versatile Coventry midfielder to his squad before the Premiership's new transfer window kicks in at the end of the month.

However, with finances currently tight at all levels of the game, the Rovers boss accepts he may have to off-load some of his fringe players before he can bring in any further new blood.

And that could be difficult in the present climate as clubs from the Nationwide League are reluctant to spend any serious money following the collapse of ITV Digital.

"At the moment, we don't have the money to buy David Thompson," said Souness.

"We would have liked to bring in more players over the summer but we don't have the money.

"Having said that, I'm still happy with the squad I've got now because we've got both Dwight Yorke and Andy Todd in and that improves our lot."

Although Souness has spent just £3 million in the transfer market this summer, the £7 million required to fund the signing of Andy Cole last December also had to come out of his budget for this season which is why he is struggling to raise the cash required to complete the Thompson deal.

Ideally, Rovers would like todo some kind of swap deal and they have tried to offer City boss Gary McAllister both John Curtis and Alan Mahon in part exchange.

However, the Sky Blues have been put off by the players wage demands and now Souness faces the prospect of missing out on the former Liverpool midfielder unless he can off-load elsewhere.

In the meantime, Souness has stressed that survival in the Premiership rather than success in Europe is his top priority going into the new campaign.

If Rovers needed any warnings about the distraction of playing in the UEFA Cup then Ipswich provided it last term when they suffered the ignominy of relegation to the First Division following a run in Europe and Souness is determined not to make the same mistake.

"Ipswich are a similar club to ourselves, who had a good first year in the Premiership, qualified for Europe but because of that took their eye off the ball," he said.

"That won't happen to us and the teams we pick in the UEFA Cup will reflect that. There is no use is getting to the semi-finals of Europe and finding ourselves in the Nationwide League. The supporters have to understand that.

"The price for not being in the Premier League is a very hefty one. If we were to go down we would lose the vast majority of our quality players - and you can understand that.

"The majority of clubs in the Premiership are like ourselves. Even if you just stay where you are the ones outside it will be going so far back because of the cuts they are having to make, it feels like you are going forward anyway.

"What we must do is make a decent start. The team deserve a lot of credit for last year because they played in the correct way even though we spent most of the time under the cosh.

"If we can keep ourselves out of trouble, we will be able to play with more confidence and our performances should improve even more."

Meanwhile, as we reported in our later editions last night, Souness has revealed that Rovers are close to agreeing a new deal with Damien Duff.

Speculation continues to link the Republic of Ireland international with a move to one of the Premiership's big guns and Rovers have admitted that both Manchester United and Liverpool have made enquiries about the 23-year-old during the summer.

However, as the club prepared for today's opening game against Sunderland at Ewood, Souness said he is hopeful that Duff will sign a new contract.

"In my two years at this club we have not had a single offer for Damien Duff," said the Rovers chief. "We had enquiries from Liverpool and Manchester United at the end of last season and during the close season. But we have had no offer and he is not for sale.

"We have known we had a gem for a long time but the secret's out now. He is starting to get the publicity he would have received if he had been at a higher profile club but we are getting very close to an agreement with Damien on a new contract."