TOMMY Spurr says Blackburn Rovers will be promoted next season if they retain strike duo Jordan Rhodes and Rudy Gestede – and add goals from other areas of the field.

Rhodes and Gestede scored an impressive 41 league goals between them during the 2014/15 campaign, but the rest of the team added only 25 goals in 46 Championship fixtures – with Ben Marshall the club’s third top scorer with six.

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Rovers could only finish ninth in the table as a result, one position lower than they had finished a season earlier.

Spurr believes that Rovers are very close to having the formula to secure promotion to the Premier League, confident that it will come next season if they can add goals from other areas to supplement the strike rates of Rhodes and Gestede.

That, however, is still dependent on both strikers remaining at Ewood Park this summer.

Gestede has made no secret of the fact that he is ambitious to play in the Premier League, and Rovers are braced for bids for the Benin international. Rhodes has also been in demand previously with Middlesbrough interested, although the Teesside club have since missed out on promotion to the top flight.

On Rhodes and Gestede, left back Spurr said: “They’ve carried us and got most of our goals.

“Marshy has got his share but everyone, me included, needs to chip in with three or four goals.

“Everyone needs to do that and if they score their goals then we will get promoted.”

Rovers were beset by inconsistency during the season and Spurr, who returned to the side for the final weeks of the season after being hampered by injury earlier in the campaign, says that youth cannot be used an excuse.

The 27-year-old said: “It’s hard for me to comment because I don’t feel I’m in a position to say what happened earlier on in the season, because I wasn’t part of it.

“But from the time I’ve been involved it feels like we get ourselves into a situation where we’re going to get a positive result and then perhaps let it slip.

“People say they’re young lads but they’ve played a lot of games.

“It’s game experience you need and the lads have got that. I don’t think we can use that as an excuse.

“It’s our decision-making at times, we’ve had times to kill the game.

“I don’t know whether it’s we’re that enthusiastic that we just want to play, sometimes it doesn’t come off and we get stung.

“Hopefully we can sort that out for next season and we should, because we can give anyone a game.

“It’s just disappointing it’s not happened for us this year, but next year I’m sure it will do.”