Rovers boss Tony Mowbray discusses 'loveable' Bradley Dack

Dack was in front of Blackburn Magistrates last week over a third breach of an order handed down for an assault on a police officer last year.

Mowbray was present in court, speaking in support of Dack, who has missed the last four matches with a knee problem.

The Rovers boss did not condone Dack’s actions, with the playmaker now needing to complete more than 140 hours of community work within seven months, but Mowbray said the club will show their full support to the player.

And the boss revealed Dack’s demeanour around the club’s Brockhall training base hadn’t changed, despite a difficult couple of weeks.

“Bradley is an infectious, loveable lad,” Mowbray explained. “People who don’t know Bradley, and I’ve only known him a year, but ask anyone around the building and they won’t have a bad word to say about Bradley.

“But I can’t defend that he got in trouble with the law and I would think of myself as a very law-abiding citizen and yet I feel as though sometimes he needs protection from himself.

“There can be a naivety around Bradley.

“You can see from the way he plays his football, he’s like a kid in the street or in the playground at school.

“He just wants to get on the ball, stick it through your legs and run around the other side then bend it in to the top corner and run off and celebrate.

“That’s how he is in life and sometimes you have to protect him a little bit from that naivety.

“He’s a lad that we have a lot of feeling for, want to help and the full support of Blackburn Rovers will be there to support him in whatever he needs, as we were last week when he needed a bit of help.

“Hopefully he will repay this football club in goals, creativity and hard work.

“Ultimately my main point is that he’s a decent human being who’s made some naïve mistakes in his life.”

Rovers will need Dack to be back to his best in a tough run of fixtures, hitting the heights of his four early season matches which saw him score four times.

He walked away with the man of the match award in all four of Rovers’ televised fixtures last term.

He is set to return to the squad for the first time in a month for their first televised fixture of this season against Aston Villa.

And Mowbray is looking forward to see Dack in action.

He added: “I’m very sure that Bradley can play at a very high level of football and I think it would be unfair to say that he just played at a higher level in televised games.

“It wasn’t just four games that he was the best player in, he’s a very talented player.

“I’m looking forward to seeing how he gets on longer term in the Championship.

“He’s started pretty well, the team is the most important thing of course. But within that, Bradley brings a creative element which is so important to any team to be able to put a team on the back foot, to make them feel there’s a threat so they can’t keep coming on to you and pushing you back.

“If he can get on the ball and drive forward as he does, beat a man, slide it in to someone and then get in the box to create chances then that’s what we’ll be looking for, for him to put a threat in the mind of these strong teams. I’m pretty sure his talent level will manage the level no problem.”

Mowbray has regularly talked about the strength of character within a squad which achieved promotion back to the Championship at the first attempt.

And speaking to his group about their conduct off the pitch hasn’t been something he has felt the need to do.

“No. I haven’t felt the need to do that,” he said. “As I’ve said time and time again I believe this group of players are very tight.

“There are some very experienced, knowledgeable people in our dressing room who manage it for me very, very well.

“The discipline within our dressing room, if not 100 per cent, is very, very tight, it’s a dressing room where people don’t turn up late, it’s very organised and hardworking, respectful dressing room and let’s hope that continues. That only happens because of decent senior professionals who look after it.”