BLACKBURN boss Graeme Souness was today set to bolster his defensive resources by snapping up former Rover Henning Berg on loan.

And Rovers have still not given up hope of landing St Etienne centre back Lucien Mettomo as well, which raises further question marks over the future of Celtic target Christian Dailly.

Ewood chief Souness has agreed a three-month loan deal with Manchester United for Norwegian international Berg.

And the 31-year-old centre back goes straight into the squad for tomorrow's clash with Nottingham Forest at Ewood.

As we exclusively revealed earlier this week, Souness had lined up Berg as a possible alternative to Mettomo after his initial offer for the Cameroon international had fallen on deaf ears.

But the pair could eventually line up in the same defence as Rovers wait to hear whether or not their new improved offer of £4.5m has been accepted.

Should that get turned down then they won't try to resurrect the deal.

But Rovers have the option of making the Berg move permanent if the next three months work out for both parties.

In any event, it puts another cloud over the future of Dailly who could feature in a swop deal for Celtic's Eyal Berkovic.

Souness said today: "Obviously we will be prepared to listen to certain things because, as I have said before, it's an area I said I could strengthen because I wasn't happy with it.

"John Robertson is a good friend of mine and we speak on a regular basis. This came about when we were speaking about what they had and what they would be prepared to let go.

"There has no deal been struck. It might happen, it might not.

"But there's lots of factors to take into account. Would the players want to swap and would the players want to leave their clubs? I can't really say any more than that.

"Football is all about opinions. Managers are paid to make decisions and you've got to get most of them right if you want to be successful."

Not leaving at the moment, though, is striker Egil Ostenstad, who was wanted by former Rovers boss Roy Hodgson.

Hodgson was keen to recruit Ostenstad for the final month of FC Copenhagen's season but Blackburn won't let the Norwegian international move to the Swedish club on loan.