TONY Mowbray admits Rovers winger Harry Chapman is a ‘work in progress’ as he weighs up whether to hand the Middlesbrough loanee a first league start.

The Rovers boss admits that the teenager must improve on the defensive aspects of his game as Mowbray considers the balance of his side.

Chapman has been used off the bench in six of Rovers’ eight league games so far, and came up with the assist for Bradley Dack’s equaliser at Shrewsbury Town on Saturday.

He has now had a hand in five Rovers goals so far this season, with many fans calling for him to be involved from the start as Rovers welcome Rotherham United to Ewood Park tonight (7.45pm).

“I understand, I’m not stupid, I see that when he comes on he can beat players and create chances, I’m very conscious of people when we’re out there thinking ‘why isn’t Chapman playing?’,” Mowbray said.

“Harry Chapman in my opinion is a work in progress.

“He’s a young boy who is very talented with the ball at his feet, taking people on, but at this moment in time he has a lot to work on out of possession, when he has to close down, when he has to screen a pass off to their wide player and he has to listen, learn and get better.

“To start a young player like that in a very athletic league and with a defence that’s not the most mobile defence in the world, it needs protecting and screening at times, and that makes it difficult to play too many attacking players and expose a part of the team which has done fantastically well for us, but is made up of a certain type of footballer.”

Mowbray has so far used Chapman as an impact substitute and admits there is a balancing act to his team selection.

He added: “How many strikers and attackers do you put on the pitch?

“The game is 90 minutes long, for instance if you get a goal and teams over commit men forward trying to get an equaliser you can stick Chapman on that right wing, wait to counter-attack and break away as he has done in the past.  He finished the game off against MK Dons, he came on and we scored two goals.

“But you have to be careful of protecting your team from being out of the game before you’re in the game because if we keep losing the first goal then life becomes very difficult when they sit men behind the ball and you become vulnerable to the counter-attack by committing men forward.”

Rovers have won all four of the games in which they have scored first this season, and are unbeaten when scoring first in the league since November 2016. However, their last win when conceding the opening goal was also last November when they defeated Brentford 3-2.

Mowbray added: “Football tactics are something that I like to think I am astute at.

“There are statistics out there that show that scoring the first goal in a game gives you a fantastic chance of winning the three points.

“I just think it’s the way you set your team up.

“If you set up your team to score three or four goals every game then there’s a fair chance you will lose a lot of goals because you’re an attacking team.

“It’s a balance of how many attackers against how many defenders you have on the pitch.

“The guys who are on the pitch breaking and running forward, you are probably leaving space in behind.”