TONY Mowbray will appeal to Venky’s not to sell off all of Rovers’ star names this summer as he plans to meet with the club’s Indian owners.

Mowbray is set to speak with members of the Rao family to discuss his future, as well as their own ambitions ahead of the club’s first season in the third tier for 37 years.

Venky’s pledged the ‘full support’ to head coach Mowbray in a statement released in the wake of relegation from the Championship and thanked him for his efforts since taking charge in February.

Mowbray was appointed to the role in February, following the departure of Owen Coyle, and picked up 22 points from his 15 points in charge, but that wasn’t enough to keep Rovers in the Championship.

The head coach gave no assurances on his future in the immediate aftermath of relegation at Brentford, and plans to meet with the owners in the coming weeks as Rovers start to plan for life in League One.

On what he wanted to come from the meetings, Mowbray said: “My first conversations with the owners would be that we need to keep our under-contract footballers and not try to sell them off.

“We’ve got some well-salaried players for in the Championship and to go into League One they will be very well-salaried players

“It depends on the ambition.

“Hopefully, I believe that we are going to be really strong in League One next season.

“I know the salary levels at that level and if we keep our players then we will have a budget where I could not sit in front of anybody and say we need more money.

“We’ll see what the summer brings and what the team looks like at the end of it.”

Rovers will need to cut costs however, ahead of their first season in the third tier since the 1979/80 campaign following relegation.

They have cut the wage bill by more than half in the last four years, but in the latest set of club accounts, released in February, that still exceeded the annual turnover of £22.4m, which will also take a further hit.

Rovers have seven players out of contract this summer, while five more have returned to their parent clubs at the expiry of their loan spells.

That leaves Rovers with 15 players who have made appearances for the first-team under contract next season.

And if he is to be in charge at Ewood Park next season, Mowbray is looking to keep the bulk of his squad together to make it a short stay in  League One.

He added: “The main issue for me is to try to keep the players that I think will be too strong for League One.

“The ownership, I can only recommend and tell them what I’d like to happen.

“We’ll wait and see what happens this summer.

“The facts are quite damning. You can’t keep selling your best players and expect to progress. It’s just common sense.

“I’d like us to go out and buy a load of players and make me look a really good coach. But it’s not the way it happens.

“We have to put together the pieces and create a team that is functional and wins week in, week out.”