Transfer rule could see Blackburn Rovers miss out on ex-Birmingham City striker after what happened this weekend

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Blackburn Rovers began their new Championship campaign with a 1-0 loss away at the Hawthorns to West Brom.

West Brom scored early with a goal from Northern Ireland international Isaac Price, and after taking the lead, they never appeared likely to concede a goal to Blackburn Rovers.

Valerien Ismael attempted to take the positives from the game before their Carabao Cup match with Bradford City; however, he understands there is interest in more of his stars before the transfer window ends.

Blackburn are light in attacking options for the season ahead, and fans will be hopeful they can strengthen in this position.

Yet, the club suffered a transfer blow in their pursuit of one player they had been chasing to fill the hole in attack.

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Blackburn Rovers’ hope of signing Koji Miyoshi took a blow this weekend

Blackburn Rovers had been linked to the signing of former Birmingham City striker Koji Miyoshi ahead of the weekend; however, this interest may now have taken a blow.

As reported in the Lancashire Telegraph, the reason behind this is registration issues.

Rovers needed the striker not to play any minutes for Bochum this summer in the Bundesliga 2 to allow the club to sign him as a GBE work permit due to the fact that he played in one of Europe’s ‘band one’ leagues last season, as his German side had been relegated last season.

However, the Japanese striker made an appearance off the bench at the weekend in a 2-0 victory over Elversberg, meaning he would require an ESC slot in order to sign for Blackburn Rovers, resulting in the Lancashire outfit not being able to simply register him as part of the squad.

There are two ways that Rovers could free up a space in this transfer window. That would be to either sell or release one of the players.

Or they can give Exauce Mafoumbi his Championship debut. As the player hasn’t yet made his senior debut for any club, making his first appearance in a bad second-tier league would earn him five points. He’d then get an additional 10 points for playing in the Championship, hitting the 15 needed to qualify for a GBE work permit.

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Todd Cantwell to return

Blackburn struggled to create chances throughout the match against West Brom, and this could have been due to the fact they were missing their dynamic attacker Todd Cantwell.

There may have been some concerns about how long he would be sidelined for, but Valerien Ismael has confirmed he will return for the Bradford City match.

While the manager confirmed this, who may be involved in the cup game, as he looks to get early minutes into all his players.

He said: “Everyone has to be ready; we want to give minutes for the players to play, but it’s not possible.

“Now it’s a chance, at least, as I say, to bring everyone on the same level from the fitness level to give another 90 minutes to see how they are after the good pre-season. Everyone would have been deserving to play, but sometimes you just have to make the decisions.

“Todd Cantwell will be back for the game tomorrow, so we expected him at some point to come in.”