BLACKBURN Rovers are in a ‘much better financial place – but not where we need to be’.

That is the verdict of director Mike Cheston who confirmed the club will be Financial Fair Play compliant for the second year running after spending the whole of 2015 under an embargo.

He said: “We’re in a much better financial place but we’re not where we need to be. For example we’re still making settlement payments in relation to prior periods.

“But the season just ended, we’ll be FFP compliant again, which will be two years running.

“Every season brings a new challenge so we need to remind Owen (Coyle, manager) if he needs reminding that we need to keep within FFP this year.

“Are we where we want to be ideally? No. There’s still a lot of work to do but we’re in a much better place.”

Asked whether Rovers will need to win promotion to the Premier League or sell players to get to where the club needs to be, Cheston said: “It depends what your overheads are.

“Premier League would be a massive wish for but we’re not going to rely on that.

“From time to time we may sell players but that would not be driven by finances. Demonstrably we proved, for example, with Jordan Rhodes, that the owners have always supported us. We could have cashed in on Jordan Rhodes earlier than we did.

“We don’t need to for cash-flow purposes but sometimes you’ll find yourself in a position where you have to sell your best players.”

Cheston stated the commitment of Rovers owners Venky’s ‘cannot be questioned’ and cited the fact they are in the process of making a ‘key appointment to the management team’ as proof of that.

The successful applicant for the role, which was first advertised in May, will be based at Ewood Park and in India.

Asked for an update on the process, Cheston said: “We’ve conducted a number of interviews.

“We need to advise the successful applicant once we’ve clarified a couple of points but they will strengthen significantly the communication links between us and India, which can only be a good thing.”