STEVE Kean has thrown Benjani an Ewood Park lifeline after seeing the striker help guide Blackburn Rovers to within touching distance of Premier League safety.

The Zimbabwean will hope to continue in attack for Rovers’ crucial trip to West Ham on Saturday afternoon, knowing victory would virtually guarantee their top flight status for another season.

Benjani’s Rovers future was looking bleak after his limited early season appearances left him unable to reach the mark needed to automatically earn himself another season at the club.

The striker’s contract runs out at the end of the season and a lack of games would have meant missing out on an extension.

But after appearing in four of the last five games boss Kean admits the striker, who signed until the end of the season at the end of August, is doing his chances of earning a new deal no harm at all.

Kean said: “Benjani is playing for his future and I think he has shown that in his performances. He is lively and I would not like to play against him as a centre half.

“I spoke to him because he had a clause in his contract that he was never going to reach. He had to have so many starts and by the time he got to Christmas he was never going to do it. He wasn’t going to automatically activate the second year in his contract.

“What we said was ‘go out, be yourself and relax. You are playing for a contract here or somewhere else so just relax and play and we will sit down at the end of the season and see if there is anything to offer’.

“He has given us something to think about now because he has performed really well.”