Will Samba play?

STEVE Kean admits he “has no idea” whether Chris Samba will be in Blackburn Rovers’ squad for Saturday’s crucial visit of Queens Park Rangers.

Rovers’ want-away skipper was not involved in Saturday’s 7-1 drubbing at Arsenal, despite being “fit and available”, and Kean admits talks will need to be held in an attempt to resolve the situation.

Samba went public last month on his desire to quit Ewood Park, suggesting he could not be 100 per cent for the club any more, and he has not featured since.

Keith Andrews, who left Rovers for West Brom last week, has suggested he does not expect Samba to play for the club again and Kean did little to clear the uncertainty, saying: “All I will say on it without going too deep, because I am not a legal expert, is he is fit and available for selection but I have decided not to put him in the squad.

“He is one of my key defenders and you always miss any player when they are not available. It is a position we would like to get resolved as soon as possible.

Christopher Samba

“The position we are just now is not really helpful for anyone. I have no idea if Chris will be involved next weekend.

“We’ll deal with that but I don’t want to talk about players who were not in the squad, I’d rather talk about the lads who were.”

Gael Givet won’t be available for the weekend, as he prepares for a three-match ban after receiving a straight red card for a two-footed lunge on Robin Van Persie.

Kean had no complaints about Givet’s dismissal but admits, at 3-1 down, an already difficult task became almost impossible.

Kean said: “It was a tough afternoon. It is hard enough playing against them with 11 man, let alone 10. The biggest bearing on the game was the early goal and us going down to 10 men.

“I really don’t think the referee had a difficult decision to make because we all know the rules now, if you leave the ground with two feet, you know those sort of challenges are not going to be accepted any more.

“It was uphill from there. Gael is cut up. He is a very genuine guy and the way he plays everyone will know that.

“The turning point of the whole game is the sending off, because I still felt we could regroup, make a couple substitutions but when you go down to 10 against Arsenal, they are very good at finding their way through.

“It is not forgotten, far from it. We will work our way through every goal to make sure it does not happen again.”