Last Updated: Mon, 27 Feb 2012 12:16
Steve Kean claims the Blackburn squad 'will all be pulling together' now that Chris Samba has been granted his wish to leave the club.
The Rovers chief has broken his silence after the 27-year-old defender made the move to Anzhi Makhachkala for an undisclosed fee on Friday - the transfer deadline day in Russia.
It brought an end to a saga which stretched back to the start of January when Samba lodged a transfer request, which was ultimately rejected by Rovers, while they turned down several bids from Premier League rivals QPR.
The close of the transfer window on January 31 failed to sway Samba from his determination to leave Ewood Park and that resulted in them finally relenting and allowing him to depart to Anzhi.
Rovers crashed to a 3-0 defeat at Manchester City on Saturday to drop back into the relegation places, but Kean feels the departure of a player whose heart was not in the fight for survival should be seen as a positive.
Kean told the Lancashire Telegraph: "From our point of view, Chris never withdrew his transfer request. He wanted to go, he made that quite public.
"On a positive side, now we know everyone we have in the dressing room wants to be here. We will all be pulling together.
"We wish Chris all the best, he was very vocal in public about wanting to leave and he's got his wish. I hope he does really well out in Russia."
He added: The pivotal point was that Chris didn't want to apologise, didn't want to withdraw his transfer request and was very adamant that he wanted to leave and that played a big part of it."
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