Rovers’ deadline day business took them to eight summer signings and Tony Mowbray was quick to recognise the backing of owners Venky’s.

Barry Douglas, Tom Trybull, Aynsley Pears and Harvey Elliott all arrived on a frantic deadline day as Rovers doubled the number of first-team additions.

The goalkeeping was strengthened with the additions of Thomas Kaminski, Antonis Stergiakis and Pears, while defensive additions came in the form of Douglas and Daniel Ayala.

Trybull will bolster the midfield options, with Tyrhys Dolan and Elliott bringing extra competition at the top end of the pitch.

For Mowbray, he was delighted to get the deals over the line after a tricky summer of negotiations in what was a difficult climate given clubs were counting every penny of their budgets.

He explained: “I’m very pleased and I need to thank the Owners for supporting us, I need to thank the Chief Executive for working so hard, I need to thank Mark Venus of course, our Head of Football Operations, for making a lot of calls, and Stuart Harvey, our Head of Recruitment.

“All the recruitment staff as well deserve a lot of credit as well because they’ve been working long hours, made a lot of phone calls, and as a manager it’s left for me to simply push a button or tick a box.

“They do all the work really, but we’ve spent a lot of time together over the last few months trying to identify the players that we needed to move our team forward in a certain way and with a certain style.”

Rovers had to bide their time for some of their signings, Ayala having also slipped through their grasp, while they had bids rejected for Pears by Middlesbrough before eventually getting that over the line.

Mowbray also anticipated a busy end to the window for a lot of Championship clubs and feels Rovers come out of it stronger than they went in.

"I’ve always said that transfer windows are time against money scenarios. If you bid too soon then it’s going to cost you too much money, so you have to be patient,” he told the club website.

“And there will be times where you lose footballers because other clubs will have more money and can do a deal.

“Some slip through your fingers, but we’ve been patient, we’ve worked hard and have had lots of conversations.

“As we sit here now, there’s real competition for places.

“We’ve got some squad to dig into and my job is to make sure they all gel.”

Rovers have a number of injury issues to contend with, and after all four new recruits didn’t feature at the weekend, it meant he had 11 players unavailable to choose from.

He hopes that will start to ease soon, and Rovers’ business might not have ended on deadline day, with Stewart Downing lined up to return to Ewood Park for a second season, with the 36-year-old still without a club after his contract expired at the end of last season.

The job for Mowbray now is get his new men up to speed and ready to challenge for a place in the side.

“The next job is to integrate these players into the group and to create the competition for the places,” he added.

“These players are here to provide real competition, and the best teams have competition all over the pitch.

“We’re all looking forward to seeing how it all comes together, but we’ve signed some pretty good footballers in my opinion and the challenge is in front of us to put it into action on the grass."