MIDFIELDER Ben Marshall has called on Blackburn Rovers to make a fast start to the season.

Gary Bowyer’s side have ended the past two Championship campaigns strongly.

In 2013-14 they rounded off the season unbeaten in 12 games to finish two points off the play-offs.

While their promotion hopes last time out were effectively over after a 3-2 defeat to Brentford on March 17, they will go into the new campaign on the back of a seven-match unbeaten league streak.

Marshall, 24, said: “We have to build on the way we finished last season and I think if we can get off to a good start and be in and around it come Christmas time, I think we’ll have a good chance because we always seem to finish strongly.

“That’s the aim, we have to stick to our game plan, and hopefully we’ll get there.”

After a slow start to last season, which saw Rovers slip to 13th midway through October, an 11-game unbeaten run hauled them into the play-off places, for the first time in Bowyer’s reign, and within four points off top spot, at the beginning of December.

But a run of 13 points from the following 14 matches meant they left themselves with a mountain to climb.

Fit-again midfielder Jason Lowe, who missed the final three months of the 2014-15 campaign with a serious foot injury, said: “We’ll reflect on it and see where we went wrong but the obvious one was the consistency of our results, which we need to scrub up on.

“Hopefully we can push in there. That’s always the aim and that’s probably the aim of the majority of teams in the Championship.

“It’s such a hard league to get out of and given the amount of games you’re never going to be 100 per cent fresh.

“A set-play or a lack of concentration, there’s loads of little factors that can get you those results.”