Blackburn boss Graeme Souness has insisted that he won't be letting Irish winger Damien Duff leave the club despite admitting that Rovers need to sell before they can strengthen their squad.
Last month's capture of Turkish star Hakan Sukur stretched the Blackburn budget to breaking point and out-of-favour players like John Curtis and Corrado Grabbi must now be off-loaded.
But Souness warned interested parties that his big-name stars like Damien Duff and David Dunn were going nowhere. Last week he rejected an offer for promising young defender Martin Taylor.
Souness said: "We don't have any money to spend. It would be nice to see if we could strengthen on the left side of defence but at this time we don't have the dosh to do it.
"There are players I feel I can do without but unfortunately the way it works is that the people I want to keep here are the ones the other clubs want.
"But I won't be selling any of the players I want to keep to get a lift in that position. We'll soldier on in that department rather than letting a Duff go or a Dunn go."
Curtis has been out of favour with Souness since losing his midfield place to Lucas Neill, and is top of the manager's New Year sale list.
Rovers have also been actively pursuing possibilities in Italy with regard to recouping a fraction of the £7million forked out for Grabbi at the beginning of last season.
Souness' left-sided problems may be eased in the coming weeks by the return after an eight-week absence of Stig Inge Bjornebye.
The former Liverpool man came through a midweek reserve game but Souness is unwilling to rush him back and will give him at least two more low-key matches before considering him.
Sukur is likely to have recovered from his hernia operation in time to start on the bench against Manchester United in a week's time, but Rovers have been hit by a new injury blow after Dunn was ruled out of tomorrow's trip to Everton.
Dunn limped off after 10 minutes of last week's draw at Bolton with what first appeared to be a hamstring strain.
But he has struggled all week with what Rovers medical staff now believe to be a trapped nerve in his back.