TONY Mowbray hopes a more positive approach from Portsmouth could play into Rovers’ hands in tomorrow afternoon’s game at Ewood Park.

Rovers have found teams hard to break down at Ewood Park, scoring nine goals in six home matches, including netting four in the win over MK Dons in September.

Plymouth Argyle packed 10 men behind the ball in Tuesday’s frustrating draw for Rovers who took just one of the 35 goalscoring opportunities they created.

But with Pompey arriving in East Lancashire one place below Rovers in the table, with two away victories to their name and expecting top scorer Brett Pitman to return, Mowbray is expecting a more positive approach from the visitors.

“Definitely more expansive,” Mowbray said when asked about the expected gameplan from Kenny Jackett’s side.

“They won’t come and do what Plymouth did.

“They have got some good technical footballers, they have some individuality and they will come and make it a football match which could be good for us.

“But it may mean we need to be more guarded in attack, they have some technically good players in their team.

“It’s the next challenge, that’s all it is.

“As I keep saying to the players, we have to go and compete, work hard and ask questions of the opposition but be conscious of their threats.

“Portsmouth is the next challenge in front of us.”

Rovers’ inability to find a winning goal against Plymouth having fallen behind in the first half means it is now almost a year since they won a game in which they conceded the first goal.

It is also a similar timeframe since they scored first and went on to lose.

But not paying too much attention to the statistics, Mowbray says his side are always looking to start on the front foot having scored early goals in wins over MK Dons and Rochdale.

Mowbray added: “The stats have been there since football began, if you score first you have a good chance of winning the game, or certainly not losing the game.

“It would have been nice to have bucked that trend on Tuesday but we didn’t manage to do it.

“We never start a match thinking ‘let’s concede the first goal’, we’re always trying to score from the first whistle.

“Sometimes it doesn’t happen and I don’t think there were lots tactically wrong with the goal we conceded.

“You can be disappointed that two or three players didn’t manage to get a foot in on (Graham) Carey as he drifted past them but it was a fantastic finish from where he hit it.

“You become as a coach more disappointed if it’s tactical, someone didn’t fill the near post space or get round on the cover.

“But this was a lad who, as he did against Shrewsbury last weekend, smashed one in from 25 yards.

“The next game is the next game, we will give it our best shot, work hard, be organised and try and get the three points.”