Tony Mowbray feels consistency of selection will help breed consistency of results as Rovers strive to make moves up the Championship table.

Twelfth-placed Rovers host Barnsley today where they will aim to round off an unbeaten November and back-up the impressive midweek win over Preston North End.

The manager hasn’t shied away from trying to raise expectations at the club, and hopes fans have recognised the strides that have been made, despite the unavailability issues they have faced.

Rovers have showed no shortage of promise this season, though the one question mark that hangs over them is their ability to find a level of consistency with their results, something they failed to address in previous play-off bids.

“It’s a word I use a lot with the team yet we haven’t had consistency of selection because we haven’t had the same team to pick every week,” Mowbray told the Lancashire Telegraph.

“What I see with this team is an identity, a pretty set way of playing. We have to be the very best version of us and that’s what we’re striving for.

“I think we have an identity and supporters know what they’re going to get from their team.

“That doesn’t mean we’re going to win every week, but it means a maximum effort, a high intensity performance, hopefully creating chances and trying to score goals.

“That’s the identity we’re trying to create and I’ve been saying for a while that we’ve generally had more possession, more shots, more efforts at goal, more goal threat, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to win the game.”

Mowbray’s men have shown real promise, but have won back-to-back matches just once this season,  while their current four-match unbeaten run is the longest so far.

Mowbray acknowledges that his side haven’t been alone in the issues they’ve faced, with several players forced to self-isolate, with the unavailability list at times topping 11 first-team players.

“We’ve had players for four to four weeks, it felt like my phone was ringing at 10.30 every night saying that we had someone with symptoms and that they wouldn’t be training and not available for Saturday,” he added.

“Consistency is very difficult when you can’t pick a consistent team which is why training has been very much aligned to try and get 22 or 24 players so that in those emergency situation where the team from a Friday changes then everyone knows the job still.

“It’s been a bit difficult and that didn’t help consistency but as we move forward, as the country moves out of the Covid environment and more normal, as our players become more robust to injury, we have a consistency of selection and the team will function.”