Blackburn Rovers' owners insist Steve Kean has “all the makings of being a top Premier League manager” after making him their ‘main man’ for the season.

The 43-year-old Scot was, as expected, named as Rovers manager until the end of the campaign yesterday after acting as caretaker boss since the shock sacking of Sam Allardyce.

Venky’s chairman Anuradha Desai told the Lancashire Telegraph earlier this week the job was Kean's to lose and she repeated that message to him during talks in India on Wednesday.

She has now insisted she was impressed by Rovers former first team coach during lengthy talks at their Pune headquarters and urged the critics to get behind their man.

The search has already started for two new coaches to help Kean, with Mrs Desai revealing she expects to interview five or contenders once the manager has drawn up a shortlist.

Replacing the experienced Sam Allardyce with Kean, a managerial novice, has caused concern among the club's supporters ahead of the Boxing Day visit of Stoke City.

But Mrs Desai insists experience isn't everything and believes Kean has the potential to become a top Premier League boss.

She said: “We have made a decision that backing him like this was the right thing to do and we are confident he will do a good job for us.

“We have studied him quite closely and have been impressed by what he has done. We have also had a long chat with him and we wanted to back him.

“We hope this can put an end to the speculation. We want to give him a chance and we want everyone else to give him a chance.

“Everyone has to begin somewhere. We are not worried about his lack of experience as a manager because we feel he can do well with this chance.

“He has been doing a lot at Blackburn Rovers anyway. He filled in when Sam Allardyce was not there and has been doing his role very successfully.”

Kean is now understood to be in pole position to land the job beyond this season but a poor run of results will quickly see his bosses look elsewhere – with other options still being researched.

They are keen though to give him every chance to succeed in the position and will back him financially in the transfer window to help him achieve their ambitions.