IT is a shame that Tom Cairney could be on his way to Fulham, but I think losing one of the two strikers would be a bigger problem for Blackburn Rovers.

In midfield Rovers at least have a few different options to cover for Cairney’s loss.

But if one of the strikers was to go as well that would be a major problem, because they haven’t got the same options up front at the moment – particularly after Josh King’s departure.

If Rudy Gestede or Jordan Rhodes went, they would be so hard to replace.

Gary Bowyer must have spent the summer so far trying to ignore his phone, hoping not to get any calls, because he will have wanted to keep his best players at the club.

Even with Cairney I think Rovers still needed to find more goals from midfield, though.

I don’t think you necessarily give your midfield players a target, but if you’re looking for 15 to 20 goals from your strikers then you want your attacking midfielders to be scoring 10 goals.

I saw yesterday that Chris Taylor has been linked with a move to Rotherham and I’d imagine his future will depend on how regularly he is likely to play if he stayed at Blackburn.

Chris is 28 and at that age he will want to be playing football week in, week out.

I’m sure he will have had a conversation with the manager about it.

If Gary can’t guarantee regular games then maybe Chris might be tempted by playing football elsewhere.

In that situation I don’t think Gary would stand in his way. He wouldn’t have any choice anyway because Chris is out of contract, but I think Gary has always been understanding with players like that.

It’s a tough one for the Rovers boss though because with the embargo he wouldn’t want to lose any members of his squad and it would be a loss.

Chris has been a steady player for Rovers, he always puts in 100 per cent and gives everything he can. Gary likes those sorts of players.

He had a tough job when he took over as manager because there was an awful lot to sort out but he has moved the dead wood on and that is pretty much done now. There’s only really Leon Best who they’d like to move on.

Leon has a year left on his contract and I’m sure they’d be looking to loan him out or ideally sell him.

But I’d imagine that Leon won’t want to take a wage cut and he hasn’t done brilliantly in his loans at other clubs, so there may not be that many takers.

Maybe we might see him back for pre-season, but I can’t see him being part of Rovers’ plans.