With the summer transfer window now almost upon us, plenty of clubs are about to get rather busy updating their squads, and Blackburn Rovers are no different.

Given there are a number of players out of contract at Ewood Park, and several more have now seen their loan deals with the club expire, Tony Mowbray is going to have a lot of holes to fill in his side.

Now it seems as though one potential candidate who has emerged to help Rovers do that, is Stoke City midfielder Sam Clucas.

Recent reports from The Sun's Alan Nixon have revealed that Clucas is free to leave Stoke by the end of June for nothing, despite having a year left to run on his contract, if he can find a club by then.

Nixon has suggested that Blackburn are one of the sides interested in the 30-year-old, and it does seem as though this could be a sensible move all-round.

Blackburn manager Tony Mowbray has already confirmed that Lewis Holtby, Corry Evans and Stewart Downing will all leave the club at the end of this season when their contracts expire, while Tom Trybull is set to return to Norwich following the end of his loan spell at Ewood Park.

As a result, Rovers do need to add some options to their central midfield ranks this summer, and Clucas could certainly be a useful target to help do that.

His experience in that position could be useful, considering the vast majority of Rovers' available midfielders are at the early stage of their career, while the fact that he could be available for free would certainly help, given the financial impact the events of the past year have had on clubs.

You also feel that, given the players they have already confirmed will be moving on from the club, Blackburn should have the space available in their wage budget to accommodate a player such as Clucas.

However, given Nixon has indicated that Rovers are not alone with their interest in Clucas, it could be argued that Mowbray and co. may need to move quickly to get an agreement in place before someone else beats them to it.

With that in mind, it seems that while things do seem to be in Rovers' favour here, but they ought not to be relaxing too much with regards to this, until Clucas' future is confirmed one way or another.