TONY Mowbray says work is already well under way to implement Rovers’ change in style next season.

The Ewood Park boss is known to want to play more progressive football when the new Championship campaign comes around. And while the early stages of pre-season are traditionally about fitness, Mowbray has been looking beyond that during his side’s training camp in Austria.

Rovers’ friendly against Barrow on Saturday will be the first chance to put things into practice with everything geared towards the new season kicking off against Charlton on August 3.

“We’ve done a lot of football this pre-season to try and bed down some principles of play,” Mowbray said.

“We’ve given them half an hour or so of physical stuff in the afternoon but generally it’s been football.”

Mowbray says repetition will be key when it comes to getting his messages across, especially when new signings come through the door at Ewood Park and the squad fully comes together.

While the majority of the players were in Austria Charlie Mulgrew and Corry Evans did some work back at Brockhall having been given extra time off after being on international duty while Stewart Downing doesn’t link up with the squad until next week due to pre-arranged personal commitments.

“Modern-day footballers want to know what their job is on the pitch and want to know the finer details,” Mowbray told the club website.

“We’ve done a little bit of that already and I’ve told them we’ll have to repeat it when we hopefully sign some new players.

“The internationals, Mulgrew and Evans have trained back at the training ground while we were away and Stewie Downing joins us on Monday.

“We’ll go through it again.

“It’s a constant thing. Football is about good habits and repeating good habits and knowing how you function. 

“We’ll continue that through pre-season, interspersed with games along the way.

“We’ll pick the good things and the bad things from the games and keep working and aim towards the start of the season.”