ROVERS are hopeful that Tony Mowbray will agree to an extended stay at Ewood Park.

Venky’s pledged their ‘full support’ to the head coach in the wake of relegation to League One, but Mowbray revealed he would wait to speak to the owners before committing his future.

The former Celtic boss took over the Rovers helm in February on an 18-month deal when replacing Owen Coyle. He led the club to 22 points from his 15 games in charge, but that wasn’t enough to see Rovers beat the drop.

He has 12 months to run on his current deal, but it is understood that an extended contract could be offered to the 53-year-old as a sign of the owners’ support.

They previously backed the head coach in a statement released in March in which they praised Mowbray, stating ‘we believe we have found someone who is the best fit for the club’.

Rovers are positive a new deal will be agreed when Mowbray travels to India – for which plans are being drawn up – to meet with the owners for the first time since taking charge.

The head coach will look for certain assurances from the owners, which will likely include discussions about his backroom staff.

When Rovers parted company with Coyle in February, Sandy Stewart, John Henry and Phil Hughes left their roles as assistant manager, first-team coach, and goalkeeping coach respectively.

Mowbray was appointed as head coach less than 24 hours later, with David Lowe stepping up to assistant manager from his previous job as head of Academy coaching and David Dunn promoted from Under-23s assistant to first-team coach.

He previously told the Lancashire Telegraph he may look to make additions to his backroom staff in the summer, but has praised both Lowe and Dunn.

The make-up of his backroom team was one of his talking points with former director of football operations Paul Senior prior to accepting the job, and in his first press conference he said: “The people I’ve worked with before are in employment, they are working hard at their clubs to try and help them and I think it would be wrong of me to approach them about taking them out of their football clubs at this moment. If that sort of scenario is going to happen it would probably be in the summer.

“At this moment in time I’m very happy to be working alongside the people I am.”

Mowbray will also look for assurances from the owners on what budget he will be given to work with.

Rovers will need to cut the cash from last season having operated with the ninth-highest wage bill in the Championship last term.

The club’s senior players will be forced to take wage reductions following relegation, having been written in to their contracts, while a further seven players see their deals expire in the summer.

The club’s five loan players have also now returned to their parent clubs.

It means Rovers currently have 15 players who have already represented the first-team under contract for next season and Mowbray said he would appeal to Venky’s to keep hold of the club’s star names this summer as he looks to launch an immediate assault on promotion back to the Championship.