Blackburn won't gift Roque Santa Cruz to Manchester City

Sam Allardyce has taunted Manchester City by claiming they won't offer enough money to land Roque Santa Cruz.

The Blackburn boss is determined to hang on to his want a way striker and doubts that City - for all their millions - will match Rovers' asking price.

The two clubs are understood to have made contact prior to Allardyce's arrival and City were said to be stunned by Blackburn's demands for in excess of £20million for a player who cost them just £3.8m 18 months ago.

Allardyce said: "From my point of view, I'd be very, very reluctant to sell him unless big, big money came in. I don't want him to leave and I don't want to sell my best players.

"If there was a huge offer we would have to consider it, but we've not had a huge offer of cash, so we can't.

"My feeling is that nobody will offer enough money for Roque for us to consider selling him. I've no price in mind - that's the chairman's baby, not mine."

Allardyce is loathe to sell last season's top scorer to one of his relegation rivals because he says it would be almost impossible to replace Santa Cruz in January.

"For me, any amount of money is no good because there ain't any amount of players I can spend it on to make Blackburn Rovers any better than they are," he said. "That's one of the problems any manager has.

"If the player you bring in doesn't have any Premier League experience, then it's hugely difficult for that player to come from abroad and perform immediately. And the predicament we're in means he has to be an immediate success."

Although Big Sam let Santa Cruz escape with a ticking-off for claiming in an interview on Friday that he wants to join a "better and more ambitious club", he has warned him his first-team place is not guaranteed.

The Paraguayan international is not expected to recover in time from his calf injury to make the trip to Sunderland on Boxing Day and, ironically, may have to sit out Rovers' clash with City on Sunday because Jason Roberts and Benni McCarthy are in hot form.

"If we go to Sunderland and perform as well as we did against Stoke, then he might not get his place back," said Allardyce. "It's difficult when you stay out of the side for a few games in terms of your match sharpness.

"If Roberts and McCarthy are producing goals, it's difficult for me to replace them with Santa Cruz."

Allardyce has wasted no time making his mark at Ewood Park and he has already wiped away any trace of his predecessor Paul Ince.

Yesterday he axed Robbie Fowler and part-time defensive coach Nigel Winterburn and has reversed Ince's decision to pay Chilean side Audax Italiano £5m for on-loan winger Carlos Villaneuva.

Allardyce claims the money he has saved in not renewing Fowler's short-term pay-as-you play deal and deferring Villaneuva's permanent transfer will be useful next month.

"I don't think Robbie would play that many games with our forward four of Benni, Jason, Roque and Matt Derbyshire," he said. "We'll be looking for new players in January and those sort of funds will help towards funding another signing in January.

"I haven't seen enough of Carlos Villaneuva. I wouldn't put the club into the position where I'd be advising them to spend that sort of money on a player I don't really know too much about."

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