TOMMY Spurr says Blackburn Rovers’ players are aiming to surpass 70 points before the season is over - to show that the club is still moving forward.

Rovers’ hopes of promotion this season are at an end but players and staff spoke about targets for the remaining games after their FA Cup exit to Liverpool.

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Manager Gary Bowyer told his players that they are playing for their futures on an individual level, and the squad also have a collective aim to beat last season’s points total.

Rovers finished eighth last season - a position that now seems beyond them this term - but Spurr thinks they can still reach the points total they amassed a year ago.

Last season they picked up 70 points.

With five games to play after Saturday’s 0-0 draw at Reading, they have 58 points, so would require a strong finish to the campaign with four more wins.

Spurr said: “We’ve spoken about setting ourselves individual targets between now and the end of the season and also team targets - getting more points than last year, scoring more goals and conceding less than last year. We’ve got to try to achieve that.

“I think it would show that we’ve kept along that theme of continuous improvement.

“If we can get to that it will be brilliant and show that we have improved again.

“But for next season we need to kick on even more to get where we want to be.”

Spurr, normally a left back, filled in impressively as an emergency centre half alongside Matt Kilgallon at Reading and may have to continue in that position as Rovers wait for news on how long Alex Baptiste will be out with a hamstring problem.

After a difficult season in which injuries and the form of Markus Olsson have restricted his appearances, he enjoyed his appearance at the Madejski Stadium.

He said: “I’ve always felt really comfortable at centre half, that’s where I played when I was younger so slotting in there is not much of a problem.

“It was good to get a game, what I’m trying to do between now and the end of the season is get games.

“It’s been frustrating all year for me so any game time playing anywhere I’ll take it and do my best.

“I think when I’ve played I’ve actually done all right and got better each time. On Saturday I thought me and Killa did all right.”

Both Spurr and Kilgallon are left footed, and it was Spurr who played on the right of the two centre back positions.

“I didn’t have much choice going on the right, Killa wasn’t using his right foot so I had to try to use mine!” added the former Doncaster defender.

Spurr is now looking forward to tomorrow’s trip to Birmingham, despite the Reading game being far from a classic for the spectators int he ground.

“Was it not? I don’t know how to take that, I don’t know if that’s just us being really good defensively or what,” Spurr said.

“Maybe it wasn’t but in the Championship away from home we’ll take a point. We went there, got a clean sheet and got a point.

“It’s something we need to take into next season.

“That’s a typical away performance which gets you a point and you never know, sometimes you nick a goal and you win the game.

“We’ll move on to Tuesday now.”