EVEN when Blackburn Rovers were enjoying a near perfect to start life under their new manager, Paul Lambert, publicly and privately, never disguised the fact that he has a big job on his hands.

Whatever would have happened at the Macron Stadium would have done little to alter that view.

But the 1-0 loss to Bolton Wanderers and, more damningly, the manner of it, will have only strengthened his belief that the squad he has inherited needs strengthening across the board.

Some areas have been blindingly obvious to supporters long before Lambert’s arrival.

The chronic lack of pace and the need, post-Rudy Gestede, to find a player to lighten the goalscoring load on top scorer Jordan Rhodes, who is on his longest drought of the season.

Lambert also believes he needs to add extra height to a collection of players who, in the main, are under six foot.

He also knows he needs to address the unbalance in centre of the park where he is overloaded with midfielders of a similar ilk.

And, after the desperately disappointing derby defeat on Monday, he admitted he needs to find more creativity too.

The blank at Bolton means Rovers have failed to score in their last three matches with their only goal since the 2-0 triumph at Bristol City five games ago being the own goal that secured a scruffy 1-0 home win over Rotherham United.

Since then they have drawn 0-0 at home to Nottingham Forest and lost 1-0 at Reading before they became the first side to lose to Bolton since September.

And asked afterwards if he was concerned by a lack of goals, Lambert said: “Absolutely.

“Apart from this game, we have created chances, though. In the Reading game and in the Forest game, we created chances. So I wasn’t too disappointed because I knew the chances were there.

“Today I thought it was more of a kind of off-the-cuff chances. It was balls bouncing about the box; it wasn’t pretty.

“I do think we need some creativity and it’s up to us to get that creativity into the team as you’re going to get games when teams sit in against you. It’s up to you to be creative.

“We need to get some creativity into the side, there’s no two ways about it. I think we need that type of player.”

If Lambert is looking within then he knows he can rely on Craig Conway.

While he had a rare-off day against Bolton, no-one comes close to Conway in terms of the number of key passes he is averaging per league game (3.9) – Ben Marshall (1) is some way back in second – and in terms of the number of assists he has made this season.

The winger has set up six Championship goals with the rest of the Rovers squad combined making just seven.

That includes zero from any of Conway’s midfield colleagues.