ANYONE watching Blackburn Rovers lose to United on Monday night would have to admit it was a brave effort from the 11 players out there.

There was no lack of effort, guts or desire as they got to within 10 minutes of picking up a crucial point against the likely Premier League champions.

The big concern has to be where are the rein-forcements? At the moment the club is asking 11 men, 12 at the most, to save them from disaster.

I am convinced Kean’s main players are more than good enough to keep Rovers up. A couple of injuries and I’m not so sure.

It was crying out for a change on Monday. Marcus Olsson had run himself into the ground, while ‘Yak’ looked to be struggling.

Kean though had nowhere to go. With the exception of David Dunn there was little other option. So it was kept the same and United’s in-evitable breakthrough came.

It was the same against Bolton the previous weekend when, despite trailing 2-1, only Dunn was brought on as Rovers tamely surrendered.

The lack of substitutions in recent weeks has even sparked wild rumours about potential appear-ance fees being the problem.

These are just that, rumours without sub-stance. The problem is a lack of confidence in so many of the players that been brought here. Venky’s have to take note.

Kean’s squad is on a knife edge due to lack of strength in depth. An injury to Steven Nzonzi, Yakubu or Junior Hoilett, pictured, and we could be waving goodbye to the Premier League.

Players like Ryan Nelsen, Brett Em-erton, Michel Salgado, Jason Roberts, Keith Andrews, Chris Samba and El-Hadji Diouf have all left – or are unavailable due to ‘contract issues’ – and have not been replaced.

Since the Venky’s regime started, good money has been spent on Radosav Petrovic, Simon Vukcevic, Ruben Rochina, David Goodwillie and Jordan Slew and none of them look to be anywhere near Kean’s first team plans.

Add to that the arrival of Bruno Ribeiro, Myles Anderson and the bizarre loan signing of Anthony Modeste and you have to wonder who is in charge of Rovers’ transfer strategy?

There have been success stories. Yakubu has been fantastic, while Scott Dann is fast becoming a regular.

Marcus Olsson, Bradley Orr and Mauro Formica have shown themselves to be decent squad players as well. Why has the squad been allowed to get to this though?

This is a question continually asked, with Kean adamant he has the final say on the transfer policy. If true, and I have my doubts, then the buck stops with him.

One thing is for sure, if Kean does manage to guide Rovers to survival, he is going to need a lot more help from his owners to make sure this doesn’t happen again.