BENJANI will be offered a Blackburn Rovers lifeline after doing enough to persuade boss Steve Kean he can still make a Premier League impact.

The Zimbabwean striker’s short term Rovers deal has expired but Kean has revealed he is hopeful of extending his Ewood Park stay within the next couple of days.

Kean also admitted he will be talking to Manchester City, Manchester United and Schalke about the prospect of keeping last season’s loan stars Roque Santa Cruz, Mame Biram Diouf and Jermaine Jones in East Lancashire.

He said top of his summer wishlist would be two strikers and a midfielder but admitted that was on top of hopefully securing Benjani’s future for next campaign.

The 32-year-old striker signed a one-year deal at Rovers last August but failed to play the number of games needed to trigger a second year.

Towards the end of the campaign he played a key role at times in helping the club to safety, scoring three goals in 18 appearances in total, leaving Kean seeing him as being able to play a part next time round.

Kean said: “We are hopeful that we can put something together for Benjani.

“It will probably come on the FA website that he is a free transfer but we want him here. We haven’t gone into detail with Benji but I said to him I would like to put something towards him and that will hopefully be done in the next couple of days.

“He has done really well for us. The type of lad he is, he is happy to have a role as an impact player as a substitute or if he is in good form and has a run in the team, then I think he has shown he is a guy defenders don’t want to play against.

"He certainly had a strong end to the season.”

While confident about keeping Benjani, Kean admits the futures of last season’s loan trio are more uncertain.

He said: “We have to respect the parent clubs. When we got the lads in on loan we tried to fix prices up straight away and we were not able to do that.

“Now the loan periods are up we will be in contact with those clubs and we will see the availability of the players.

“If they are available and we have got the funds to pursue it then that is something we can take a view on.

“After that if they are available and we want them and they want to come then we will see if we can something done. If not we will move on to other targets.

“Obviously Mame goes back to Manchester United, Roque goes back to City and Jermaine goes back to Schalke, so if we can get the three of them in then that is fantastic if not then that is three positions we will definitely fill.

“You have to respect the parent clubs because they didn’t want to make it permanent and that was obviously for a reason. Maybe they want to sell the player, maybe they want to bring him back into their own squad.

“They were very strong in saying it was only a loan to start with.

“It is difficult to say how many I want to bring because I don’t know how many we are going to lose.

"I certainly think we will be bringing in two strikers and a midfield player.

"If that is the lads we had on loan fine, but if not we will be bringing in two strikers and a midfield player.

“We have got a sizeable, competitive budget and we will be able to attract players fans would like to see.”