UNITED could be set to add a bit of steel to their goalkeeping department.

Eric Steele, the former City keeping coach, is a shock favourite to be lined up to be Tony Coton's replacement at Old Trafford - just weeks after agreeing to join Blackburn in a similar role!

After five years spent at Aston Villa, Steele moved to Eastlands last year firstly under Stuart Pearce and then with Sven-Goran Eriksson.

He was credited with bringing on the career of Blues' prodigy Joe Hart who became the City No1 and in June won his first full England cap against Trinidad and Tobago.

However, when Mark Hughes moved from Blackburn to Eastlands, he took his former Ewood goalkeeper coach Kevin Hitchcock with him and Steele left City. New Ewood Park boss Paul Ince soon installed him in the same post at Sparky's old club.

He was only appointed the new coach at Ewood on July 10 but it is believed that Sir Alex Ferguson has identified Steele as the man to look after the Reds goalkeeping unit.

Clearly, Steele's move to Blackburn stunned the Reds' planning but it seems it hasn't put them off their quarry.

Fergie said last week before departing fro South Africa that the arrival of a new keeper-coach was imminent.

"We have approached someone for the job and we're waiting for clearance to employ him," he said.

"It was only 10 days ago that we decided who to get. We hope we'll have clearance by the beginning of August."

Steele is currently in Portugal with the Rovers squad on a pre-season tour but the keeper coach merry-go-round is turning fast with Rovers understood to have approached Wolves for their incumbent Bobby Mimms to replace Steele. The pull of the European and Premiership champions and working with seniors like Edwin Van der Sar, Tomasz Kuszczak and Ben Foster looks set to see Steele turn his back on Ince and Rovers less than a month after his appointment at Ewood Park.

Ferguson didn't rush into an appointment following Coton's unfortunate retirement due to knee injury problems in January.

Academy and reserve keeper coach Richard Hartis had been temporarily promoted in the wake of Coton's exit.