Allardyce eyes 'early' arrivals

Allardyce: Planning reinforcements

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Blackburn Rovers manager Sam Allardyce hopes to bring new faces to Ewood Park 'as early as possible'.

Allardyce took over at Rovers in December and he has made no secret of the fact that he wants to strengthen his inherited squad in the January transfer window.

German winger Sergio Peter is expected leave for Sparta Prague later on Friday and Allardyce - who has been linked with Sunderland's El-Hadji Diouf - is keen for rapid replacements.

The former Bolton and Newcastle boss is in discussions with Blackburn chairman John Williams as the duo look to identify targets.

Focus

"I'm expecting somebody as early as possible," Allardyce told the club's official website.

"Certainly my focus over the last few days has been speaking to the chairman and saying that if I can find a player, which I'm focusing on doing, I will let you know as soon as possible and hopefully we can do something.

"We both talked about that for a long time, and we are both going to go out there and try and see if we can improve the squad as quickly as possible and that will be very good if we can.

"January is a difficult window to work in, generally the inflation that comes in a small window like this is in many cases bordering on diabolical, but if you don't pay the money you don't get the player and that is why lots and lots of money changes hands at this particular period."

Trouble

Allardyce, though, insists he will not be making sweeping changes to the Rovers squad he inherited from Paul Ince as he looks to keep hold of Manchester City target Roque Santa Cruz.

"In the main these players are good enough to get us out of the trouble that we are in," he added. "But any manager will always take a player if they think they can improve the squad."

"From our point of view, finding that player or two that would improve the squad immediately is very important now, because it would lift us all I think.

"We will try and get players that can make an impact on the team, otherwise I would prefer just to go with the squad that I've got now and not lose anybody and make sure we get out of trouble."