TONY Mowbray this week marked seven months at the Rovers helm.

In that short time, 26 other Football League sides have changed their manager.

Three lost their jobs last weekend and there could be more clearing of desks come Monday morning for other bosses under pressure.

The short life span of football managers is no shock to Mowbray who is approaching 14 years as a manager having overseen more than 550 games.

From the highs of promotion to the Premier League to the lows of relegation and Wembley play-off final heartache while at West Bromwich Albion, working under huge pressure at Celtic, and taking jobs at teams, in Coventry City and Rovers, where fans remain disillusioned with the club’s ownership.

But the pain of defeat remains the same now as it ever has, even after all those experiences.

Mowbray took a five month sabbatical from the game after leaving Coventry in September 2016, having also had 18 months out before joining the Sky Blues in March 2015 following his sacking at Middlesbrough.

“I had some time off, I took my children on summer holidays to Disney World and was a dad and husband. I enjoyed life,” Mowbray explained of his life away from the game.

“It took the pain out of your life, the sleepless nights, the energy burning stuff you go through as a manager.

“I do say to people, unless you have done the job you will never know the pain of defeat.

“This is your team, your work, your planning, your motivation, your inspirational skills you use all week, then on Saturday you get beat and you don’t get a performance.

“Unless you have done it, you will never know the pain.

“That’s why I see these young managers losing their jobs and I know what it’s like, I have felt the pain after that defeat on a Saturday when you’re driving home and your stomach is churning and you feel sick.

“You have to be a certain type of human being to take on management, if you can’t take criticism, haven’t got a thick skin, if you haven’t got a high work ethic and don’t make sacrifices, then I would suggest you don’t go in to the job.

“Yet there are rewards when you’re winning and everyone thinks you’re great.

“I would have to say that I don’t enjoy that side either when I have been successful. I don’t enjoy going to the shops and people wanting to talk about the team, I would much rather be a family man and play footy in the garden with the kids, go to the cinema and do normal family things.

“The job is something I love, I still find that when you’re out of work you want to do work, that pain disappears and softens, you believe you can win every match and then come back in to the job and realise you can’t win every match.”

Harry Redknapp (Birmingham), Gary Caldwell (Chesterfield) and Michael Brown (Port Vale) all lost their jobs last weekend, with Frank de Boer lasting just four games in charge of Crystal Palace before getting the chop.

“Is it becoming more difficult? Undoubtedly it is,” Mowbray continued.

“This is such a high profile industry with so much money at stake.

“When I started out in football managers were there for six, seven, eight years. Managers losing their jobs was very infrequent when I started as a young footballer.

“But now, the internet boom, social media, Sky and its 24/7 coverage and phone-ins became very popular for every team and supporters.

“Right at the top level, four games for Frank de Boer, I think it was only because of money.  He is probably a great guy, had a great relationship with the chairman who employed him two months earlier, and yet the panic of potentially losing the £130million of the Premier League money is quite a sobering thought when those decisions are made.

“You worry when you don’t win games and you search for the answers to put it right, and work harder, putting in more hours if that is possible searching for the answers, yet sometimes it can be the worst thing you do.

“That anxiety can transmit to others, so I have learned to be more relaxed, work harder and not take my finger off the pulse.”

Mowbray admits a manager’s first delve in to life in the dugout can make or break a career.

“I think we all go in to it knowing that you have to win,” he added.

“That first job is massive for every manager.  You lose enough games early on and you will never get a second chance, the statistics of managers getting a second chance after getting sacked in the first year, they don’t get another one.

“Thankfully I picked a club in Scotland (Hibernian) who had a bunch of young players who all materialised in to Old Firm players, internationals, or came to the English leagues.

“I worked with them for two years, I was quite successful, and moved on from there.

“I think it was a big test for me at West Brom, we had won early on, get to a play-off final but didn’t win that final and then had to build a team.

“We sold, I think, 15 players that summer and bought a new team.

“Every time I watch West Brom on the tele and see Chris Brunt and James Morrison still playing, bought 10 years for insignificant numbers but still performing in the Premier League, it’s great to see those lads doing that.

“That was another job that I chose to leave, I got the call from Celtic and chose to leave.

“That was the first time I hit adversity as a football manager really, I lost my job when trying to turn a club around, change the philosophy, the direction, and I understand it.

“Celtic, as Brendan is doing now, have to win every game and I managed Celtic at a time when Rangers were really strong.  They had just won the league, Walter Smith was in charge and they had some very good footballers.

“I went to my hometown club Middlesbrough, had three years at that, I would have to say that was a fantastic education for me, managing a team where I basically couldn’t buy any players because the budget had been spent.

“It was a pretty big budget with footballers that I had sold half of them from my last club, so I had got rid of them from my last club but inherited them all again.

“They all had three years left on their contracts, on unbelievably high money, and I couldn’t move them on again because they were happy on their contracts and no-one wanted to buy them this time.

“I basically managed a team that I didn’t like for three years and tried to do the best I could with it.

“But ultimately things don’t change, good players win you games and win leagues.

“Managers can affect games by their substitutions or tactics, but as I have been saying, recruitment is the biggest, apart from the coaching and relationship between manager and players, department.  You have to get it right and it’s the currency of your football club.

“What do you do? You do the job that you’ve always done, you engineer relationships with your players, you study football, you create an environment where they enjoy coming to work and then try and inspire them in a football match.

“Here we are at a fantastic club, good resource for the club, if not the best, and there is no excuse really.

“I need to try and put a winning team on the pitch.”