Rovers have named just one unchanged team this season with boss Tony Mowbray believing not enough players have earned the right to be regulars in the side.

Only three players have started every league game, with Mowbray wanting players to find a level of consistency that will make it more difficult for them to be left out.

There will be one enforced change against Barnsley tomorrow, with Derrick Williams ruled out, with Mowbray admitting: “Who has earned the right to think they get in the team every week? I try and engineer a scenario where it’s all about the team, it’s not about them.

“Ultimately the manager takes the flak because I pick the team and it’s about the team and they have to win.

“I understand the job, I’ve been in the game 40 years, it’s part of the business, part of the job. I pick the team, I leave players out, I put players in.”

Goalkeeper Christian Walton, captain Elliott Bennett and top scorer Bradley Dack are the three players to have started all 16 league matches, with Williams’ 15 consecutive starts set to end today.

“I think I pick Dack most weeks because I feel that even if he’s not playing well, he can score out of nothing. You need goalscorers on the pitch,” Mowbray explained.

“When Dack plays well he usually he scores and when he doesn’t he can still nick a goal because he gets in the six yard box.

“I generally pick Elliott Bennett because he drives this team, the life of the dressing room. Every player in that dressing room looks up to Elliott Bennett and when he talks, they listen.

“Armstrong generally plays because of the attributes he brings, the speed, the acceleration at the top end of the pitch.

“But he’s still learning the game, still got to learn when to stand still and get it to feet, when to run without the ball in the space behind which he’s pretty good at, but he can’t do that every time.

“Generally (Darragh) Lenihan plays when he’s fit, but hasn’t been fit enough over the last couple of years to be that centre half that plays 40 games a season.

“Travis is pushing to try and become a stick-on in this team, but he’s a young guy who gives the ball away too much. If we’re going to be a ball-retention team that can keep it and hurt team, he has to be better with the ball, but he’s got an amazing attitude, he’s a brilliant human being who wants to win every game.

“When you talk about winners, there’s no-one wanting to win more in five-a-sides than Travis. Invariably he forces his way because you need a competitive edge in your team and he brings a huge competitive edge.”

Joe Rothwell has featured in 13 of Rovers’ 16 Championship games this season, but only three from the start, all in defeats away from home. While a hit with supporters, Mowbray says the 24-year-old, who has largely been impressive as an impact substitute, must add an end product to his attractive approach play.

“Joe Rothwell might be a player who the fans ask about, he might be their favourite player, and ask ‘why isn’t he playing?’

“Well, consistency. As I’ve said to Joe, how many shots do you have, how many crosses, how many goals have you scored, how many chances do you create?

“It’s not enough to take on three players running across the pitch and laying it off, you are in the team to create chances, score goals, put crosses in to the box.

“When we analyse and break down games and he’s not doing that, it’s not enough.

“I had that discussion with him. Holtby scored on his first start, should have scored another one really when he slid one past the post, and then had a hand in Dack’s goal.

“When you pick the next team I’m saying to Joe ‘if you were the manager picking the team, you’d do the same wouldn’t you?’ He has to play in front of the guy who didn’t put any crosses in, didn’t have any shots on goal.

“It doesn’t matter how tight with the ball you are or how exciting you are running with it, you have to have end product.”

In attack, Sam Gallagher has largely led the line for Rovers, but has just one league goal to his name since a £5m summer move.

The 24-year-old has been preferred to Danny Graham, but Mowbray maintains faith that Gallagher, although a work-in-progress, will come good.

He added: “Sam has an amazing work ethic, an amazing attitude to football. Without being over-critical I still think he has to learn the art of playing centre forward, when to stand still, when to pull off the back of central defenders, when to run forward, when to come to the ball. We have to teach him the game.

“He looks as though the last two-and-a-half years since I last worked with him, he’s gone back to Southampton been on the bench, missed the Under-23s games, missed out on an education for a few years.

“He’s got a fantastic attitude to want to stay out after training and put the work in and on the video stuff.

“We’re trying to try and bring an education view to make him think more about football rather than just the 6’4 guy who is fast and can run. He has to learn how to damage teams.

“That will come. I have no fears that Sam Gallagher will become a huge positive investment for this club, but on the back of moving here from Southampton, trying to settle in, we will persevere with him.

“I’m sure the rewards are around the corner.”