Blackburn Rovers have told Fulham that midfielder Keith Andrews is not available after the London club made an approach. Contrary to reports, no official bid was received by Rovers for the Republic of Ireland international but an enquiry was made by the Cottagers.

It was met with a refusal to even enter into negotiations by Ewood Park officials.

Manager Sam Allardyce is under no pressure to sell having offloaded striker Roque Santa Cruz to Manchester City and Matt Derbyshire to Olympiacos for a combined sum of around €23million.

And he stated this week if he did choose to sell it would only be if he could move out one player to bring in two more.

Andrews moved to Ewood Park last summer for €1.15million from MK Dons and although he took a while to win over fans in his first full Premier League season his versatility proved useful.

In the latter stages of the season he was employed as a stand-in right-back.

Although Allardyce has signed Danish full-back Lars Jacobsen from Everton he still lacks cover on the right side of defence as Brett Emerton is currently working his way back to fitness from a knee ligament operation and Andre Ooijer has left for PSV Eindhoven.

The manager's priority remains signing a striker, the area where he is weakest, and that is taking up most of his time as he has remained at home while the rest of the squad are at a training camp in Austria.