Blackburn Rovers Director of Football Gregg Broughton has revealed five of the six signings they made during the summer transfer window were identified in early July, speaking to Rovers TV.

The Lancashire side endured a slow start to the summer window like they had done last year and that's perhaps understandable considering they didn't bring in Broughton and manager Jon Dahl Tomasson until June.

That gave the former very little time to come up with a cohesive transfer plan to implement, even with the club planning for the transfer window before the duo arrived at Ewood Park.

 

 

It previously look as though their late appointments would prove to be costly in their quest to bring more players in, with their lack of central defenders starting to show in their games against Reading and Sheffield United last month.

They only made their first addition towards the latter stages of July - and three of their six signings came in after the 27th August as they had to rush to complete their incoming transfer business at that point.

But these players could have been brought in earlier, with the club not only identifying most of their targets in the early stages of July but also submitting enquiries for them shortly after.

That's according to Broughton, who said (via the Lancashire Telegraph): "Of the six players we signed, five of them were identified very early in July.

"Enquiries went into their clubs very early, but we have to respect that they weren’t our players at the time.

"If you want your number one targets then you have to be patient."

The Verdict:

The timing of these enquiries is promising because although they managed to make approaches quite quickly, it's clear they didn't just launch them straight away with the manager also needing to be involved.

It seems clear that the appropriate time was taken to ensure these targets would be suitable additions at Ewood Park if they were to arrive - and that can only bode well for the future.

In fairness, taking a chance on the likes of Callum Brittain and Dominic Hyam were no-brainers when you consider the previous experience they had with their former sides and how key they were for Barnsley and Coventry City.

Others surely needed to be looked at more closely including Mola and George Hirst, with the latter plying his trade in League One last season and Broughton needing to decide whether he was ready to take the step up to the second tier.

The main thing is the fact they did manage to get these additions over the line and although they could have utilised the free agent market like some of their league rivals have, their options would have been limited.