OWEN Coyle says he will keep his counsel on any Blackburn Rovers transfer business after confirming that the club has rejected a bid from Brighton and Hove Albion for centre-half Shane Duffy.

The Republic of Ireland international, who has one year left on his Ewood Park contract, was the subject of an offer from the Seagulls believed to be around £3.5m.

Sources on the south coast suggest that Chris Hughton's side will return with another bid for the 24-year-old.

Rovers boss Coyle, who has signed five players since arriving at the club, reiterated his desire to keep hold of the defender.

And he insists he'll keep any negotiations private after revealing he had the 'rug pulled from under him' this week on a loan deal for a player who went elsewhere for 'huge money'.

Coyle said: "I think the story was released from Brighton saying that they’d made that offer (for Duffy) which was turned down, which it was.

"That is 100 per cent the truth of it.

"Over the course of the pre-season there’s been offers for players and they’ve been turned down; three or four from Grant (Hanley) and then the final one, which the owners accepted.

"The bottom line, and as I’ve said from day one, is we don’t want to be losing any players.

"I totally understand when players have a year of their contract to go and obviously that’s something I’ve inherited. I’ve come into that and that’s just the situation it is.

"You deal with that as best as you can.

"I’ve told the players I want them here, I want the Duffys and the (Ben) Marshalls to continue to play at the club for many years to come."

Rovers have been linked to Derby County full-back Craig Forsyth, with reports emerging of a £500,000 offer for the 27-year-old

Asked whether he expected any deals to be done to bring players into the club before the Championship season starts next weekend, Coyle revealed his frustration at not getting a loan through that looked to be nailed on.

"Sometimes you feel you have everything agreed and sometimes the rug’s pulled from under your feet, which happened to us earlier in the week," he said.

"I thought we had a very good chance of bringing in a player on loan and, unfortunately, he went to another club for huge money.

"Stuff like that can happen at any given moment, but it never stops from trying to target the best players possible to bring to Blackburn Rovers.

"Will something happen before next week? Possibly. But I can’t tell you definitively that it will or it won’t.

"But what I can tell you is that we’ll continue every day to try to bring good players to the club.

"When we are trying to chase those players, we certainly keep it in house and try to keep it private for fear of somebody stealing your thunder and taking that player from you.

"Some other clubs like to make their business public. That’s up to them.

"The bottom line is I’m trying to add to the squad, not to be losing players that I feel can have an impact for us."