Blackburn Rovers manager Steve Kean has claimed that his side have one of the strongest squads in the Championship and believes that Rovers can return to the Premier League at the first time of asking.

Blackburn were relegated last season after an 11-year top-flight stay, but Kean has moved swiftly to add to his squad and believes that he can keep much of the rest of the team together.

"I have been talking to most of the players and they are telling me they want to stay," Sky Sports News quotes Kean as saying. "Whether they are telling their agents something else I don't know.

"We would like to keep the majority of the squad together. We think we can have, if not the best squad, one of the best squads in the league."

Kean has already brought in Danny Murphy, Leon Best, Nuno Gomes and Fabio Nunes in the transfer window.