Tony Mowbray insists the greatest pressure he feels is from himself and maintains belief his side will turn their form around.

Rovers have seven points fewer than at the same stage last season despite the manager having ambitions of a top six push.

They host bottom-of-the-table Barnsley tomorrow sitting 18th with one win in their last seven games.

Pressure has grown on the boss from some supporters and while Mowbray says he will never ‘ be a burden on the club’, he feels the players are responding to what is being asked of them.

Mowbray past 1,000 days in charge at Ewood Park this week but is fully aware of the pitfalls of management.

“I sit here and see a team fighting and working extremely hard, a group of players who listen intently on the training ground to every word and want to make it happen,” he told the Lancashire Telegraph.

“I sit here pretty relaxed. People can ask about pressure there’s always pressure in life, you put it on yourself. The pressure you put on yourself is the main pressure.

“I want to be successful, I want to help this club and the owners be successful, I want this club to feel it can get back to the Premier League with their investment.

“I want the fans to believe they can get to the Premier League again. There’s no reason this club can’t get to the Premier League with the right chemistry of footballers, the right support and backing. That’s what I’m trying to do.

“I would never want to be a burden on the club and if I feel the players have given in, not trying or need a new voice then that’s fine.

“But at the moment I still see them fighting, working hard and that gives me the belief and confidence to keep going and look forward to the next game and believe that we can win.”

Mowbray travelled to Pune last month to meet owners Venky’s, but says he hasn’t sought any assurances over his future during a tough run of results.

He added: “I don’t talk to the owners on a daily basis. They’ll be supportive until they’re not supportive ultimately. They know I’m an honest, hardworking guy giving everything I’ve got to get this job done.

“I’m experienced enough, I’ll keep working hard and am desperate to do well for them and the supporters.”

Rovers have won five of their 16 matches this season and Mowbray says the emotion he invests in the side make defeats hard to take.

“I’ve said before, no-one knows until you’ve done it and you’ve stood in your technical area, this is what you do for your life,” he added.

“You live away from your family, I see my children once a week, sometimes twice if we don’t have a midweek game.

“I never stop thinking about football, I constantly think about my time, pushing my coaches to come up with new thoughts and ideas and invest in them as human beings.

“Does it hurt? Of course it does.

“You invest a lot in your team. I think sometimes when it doesn’t go well, and I’ve been in the game 40 years, managing for 16, as cycles can happen and there has been a very high profile manager losing his job this week, sometimes you can become too intense, push too hard.”

Mowbray guided Rovers to 15th in the Championship last season after promotion 12 months earlier. His ambition this season was to push towards the play-off spots, with his side well short of that with more than a third of the season gone.

“It’s expectation. You asked me that question a couple of weeks ago, I built that expectation this season on the team by telling them that we have to threaten the top six and believe we can beat anyone in this league on our day,” he said.

“I believe that we can, but we haven’t, we’ve been losing tight matches.

“We had an amazing home record for two years but have lost to Charlton and Luton Town. If we won those two games we’d be four points off the play-offs and still thinking we need to be better at home and lost too many games away.

“I don’t think we’re far away and have to believe we can turn it around. Once we start winning confidence will go up and we’ll cut out those silly errors and people might start believing again.

“If we don’t start winning games then I understand the business, that’s fine.

“I see the team working really hard, really believing, trying their best to get results. While I see that, I’m happy enough.

“I can’t guarantee victories, I can guarantee hard work from this team and they give everything for 90 minutes. I think all teams have to have an identity.

“This is a team with a fanbase that is working class, they want to see footballers giving them everything they’ve got which is the background I come from. 

“Win, lose or draw, I want them to feel the team are giving everything and there’s no players out there not trying and that’s all I can ask."