Steve Kean’s claims that he has never seen any of Blackburn’s three deadline-day signings could seriously come back to haunt the manager as Rovers fans wonder in bewilderment who is really in charge of the team.
Speaking to BBC Radio Lancashire, Kean admitted that he had never seen Grzegorz Sandomierski, Nuno Henrique or Diogo Rosado before, yet he was happy that his advisor – Shebby Singh – had brought them in.
“Shebby Singh was very excited about them coming here and was telling me how good they were.
“The reports we have for Greg [Grzegorz], who has played a lot of first-team football, are good but I’ve not seen him play myself,” Kean revealed.
Blackburn fans are right to be dismayed that the club have bought three unknowns into their squad and experts in the betting world have already questioned Rovers’ chances of promotion after this move.
Signing unknown players can work in a manager’s favour, such as West Ham’s acquisition of Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano despite then-boss Alan Pardew knowing nothing about the deal.
Yet in admitting he was unaware of these new signings, Kean as made a huge PR mistake that could further distance himself from the fans should it go wrong. For if this trio of unknowns take the Championship by storm and surge Blackburn back into the Premier League, Kean will receive no praise for this move as he had nothing to do with it.
However, should the trio turn out to be flops and the club’s results and scores suffer, then Kean will get the direct blame for their presence in the squad.
Questions will be asked about the manager’s command over both team selection and player acquisition and the blame will stop at him rather than Singh.
It is a PR disaster for Kean whichever way these players turn out and he has put his head firmly on the block in making this claim: one that could come back to haunt him should things go wrong at Ewood Park this autumn.
