BLACKBURN boss Graeme Souness today insisted he would not be held to ransom in his bid to sign American striker Brian McBride.

Souness wants to boost his fire-power by bringing the United States international in on loan for the rest of the season.

But the Ewood chief has admitted the deal could be doomed to failure unless the MLS (Major League Soccer) lower their demands in regard to the size of the loan fee they are seeking.

"A deal is looking less and less likely," said Souness this morning.

"We've been asked for a different fee to what we understood would be the price and we won't be giving them what they are looking for, so we might have to look elsewhere."

As I understand it, Rovers had hoped to pay a similar fee to the one Everton coughed up last season to take the 31-year-old to Goodison.

That was believed to be in the region of £100,000, but the MLS have since upped the ante.

Souness may now be forced to switch his attention elsewhere and he confirmed that he does have 'several other irons in the fire.'

Rovers' need for extra fire-power could well intensify if Ciccio Grabbi seals a move back to Italy.

As we exclusively revealed in our later editions yesterday, Rovers are currently in talks with a Serie A club about a possible deal for the 28-year-old, although chief executive John Williams was quick to stress it's still early days yet.

In the meantime, Souness and his players are busy preparing for tomorrow's clash with Aston Villa at Ewood.

And the Rovers boss has told his squad 'Our season starts here' as he gears up for two massive home games, the second of which is against Middlesbrough on Boxing Day.

"The next two games are very important because we want to have a good Christmas like everyone else," said Souness.

"I want to be able to sit down and enjoy my turkey on Christmas Day.

"In terms of the bigger picture, we'll only find out how important the next two games are come the end of the season.

"But I'm looking to win these next two and then we should be able to kick on from there.

"We should be going into tomorrow's match with confidence after the way we played at Highbury.

"If we can take the punches tomorrow and get the result we want then that should set us up for the Middlesbrough game. So our season starts now."

Villa have also found life tough this season and they have yet to win away from home in the Premiership under David O'Leary.

But Souness is still expecting a tough encounter, particularly on the back of Villa's impressive Carling Cup win against Chelsea in midweek.

"Villa are a hard team to break down. They're an extremely hard-working team and that's how they kept Chelsea out the other night just by sheer hard work.

"So if we can match them for work-rate then we should have a good chance against them but we'll have to put a shift in."

Souness is without Steven Reid after the midfielder damaged a hamstring in training earlier this week.

The Republic of Ireland international is expected to be ruled out for the full festive programme.

Rovers will choose from: Friedel, Babbel, Gresko, Todd, Short, Ferguson, Tugay, Emerton, Yorke, Gallagher, Emerton, Cole, Jansen, Baggio, Johansson, Taylor, Enckelman.

Reading are the latest club to be linked with Alan Mahon.