Blackburn Rovers manager Tony Mowbray revealed that Rovers will be unlikely to be able to afford to make a move for Queens Park Rangers left-back Ryan Manning.

Manning is entering the final year of his current deal with QPR and the 24-year-old has not featured for the London club so far this campaign, with Lee Wallace taking his place in the side. Mark Warburton’s side might have to cash in on the left-back to avoid losing the talented player for nothing.

Blackburn have so far managed to bring in goalkeeper Thomas Kaminski and Daniel Ayala this window, but Rovers could still do with adding at least one or two players to their squad before the window does shut. Mowbray’s side have previously been linked with a move for Manning.

Rovers have got off to a solid start to the campaign bouncing back from their 3-2 defeat at Bournemouth with a comprehensive win at home to Wycombe Wanderers. That suggests they are not too far away from competing this term and maybe a few more additions could make that difference.

Quiz: Have Blackburn Rovers ever loaned out any of these 9 players?

Speaking to the Lancashire Telegraph following their win against Wycombe, Mowbray distanced Blackburn from a move to Ewood Park and questioned whether he would be within their budget.

He said: “How much is Ryan Manning going to cost?

“If you’re going to buy a player, you have to buy the player, give him a salary.

“I would say there’s money to buy a player who could help us get to where we want to be, or we could loan two or three, and use that money for salary, but then that becomes dead money at the end of the year.

“We are talking about building a club so ultimately our decision will be whether we’re going to loan some players that can help us in a one-off season or buy one player who can be ours, but we’ve got more than one position we feel we need to strengthen, or cover.

“It’s a difficult conundrum. We’ll see what falls in place."

The verdict

This will be frustrating for Blackburn supporters to hear but it is also not too surprising considering that Rovers have not exactly been splashing the cash so far during the transfer window. They will need to add to their squad in some capacity though in the next few weeks.

Manning is a player that has a lot of quality and potential to be even further developed, and the fact he is in his last year of his contract at QPR could have given hope for Mowbray’s side to pursue a deal.

However, it looks like if Manning is going to get a move it will be somewhere other than Ewood Park. It will be interesting to see if Rovers have any other potential targets who they could pursue instead if the 24-year-old.