BLACKBURN Rovers may not have glory to play for in their final six games of the season, but Gary Bowyer has told his entire squad: “You’re playing for your futures.”

Rovers’ trip to Reading this afternoon is the first of six remaining league fixtures following their exit from the FA Cup, and realistically their promotion hopes seem over as they sit 14 points behind the play-off places.

But Bowyer insists that his Rovers players must perform both for the fans and for themselves.

A number of players are out of contract, while others such as Rudy Gestede and Jordan Rhodes are potentially being watched by Premier League clubs.

Bowyer is confident Rovers’ season will not just peter out.

“There’s no chance of that happening,” he said.

“We had a meeting straight after the game on Wednesday with everybody, all the squad, and we were talking about that – telling them what we expect, that there’s targets we’ve got to meet now.

“The biggest thing is we owe it to our supporters to finish as strong as possible. You saw how proud they were of their football club on Wednesday night.

“And the players are all playing for their futures, not just the ones who are out of contract.

“If you look at everybody in the Premier League and the Championship, there are not many clubs that don’t sell their players.

“I’ve said all along I want our players to strive to be the best that they can possibly be and play at the highest level they can.

“Our players are now going to get themselves under scrutiny even more because of the performances they put in against Liverpool, I'm not naive.

“I’m not selling anybody, I’m not putting anybody up for auction, but these are massive games for the players individually because how they perform reveals what type of characters they really are.

“We’re the same as every other football club, Liverpool sold Suarez. If you bury your head in the sand and try to convince yourself that you’re not going to sell any of your players ever, you’re kidding yourself.

“I want our players to try to play at the highest level they can, hopefully with Blackburn Rovers but if it’s not then good luck to them because you’ve got to have that ambition.”

Bowyer could face a dilemma this summer as he looks to ideally keep his best players at Rovers, while knowing that the club must somehow lift their transfer embargo.

“You’ve seen the impact of FFP in the last couple of weeks,” said the manager, who could look to give opportunities to some younger players in the final games of the season. “We haven’t been able to bring in enough players to help give one or two a rest, that’s why it’s important that we blood one or two youngsters now to see if they can step up because they become vitally important to you.

“The academy to our club has got to become massive for us again.

“We had a very good spell – Jason Lowe, Grant Hanley, Josh Morris, Adam Henley, Phil Jones – we’ve got to keep backing that up now while there are restrictions on us.

“But we’ve got to find a way of getting out of it (the embargo) because it has restricted us in the last couple of months.

“A lot of work is going on behind the scenes, there are meetings scheduled to take place that are ongoing to try to keep chipping away at it.”