Tony Mowbray is still confident of sealing the singing of Tosin Adarabioyo on loan from Manchester City - and revealed there is a chance of two defenders arriving at the club before the start of the season. 

Rovers are yet to add to their defensive ranks despite conceding 69 goals in their 46 Championship games.

Derrick Williams and Sam Hart will both miss the start of the season through injury, with Stewart Downing having played left back in the pre-season friendly win over Blackpool.

Adarabioyo is in line to join on a season-long loan, but the deal has dragged on, with the Rovers boss having hoped the deal would have been announced at the start of the week.

Rovers will keep working towards a positive conclusion, with Mowbray keen to bring in the 21-year-old who spent last season with West Bromwich Albion.

“It is a concern? Well we’ve changed the goalkeeper, and I think by the start of the season we’ll have another defender, possibly two, but definitely one," Mowbray told the Lancashire Telegraph. 

“I’m hopeful we’ll have a player signed on Monday but let’s wait and see.

“I would have hoped that he’d have signed last Monday, or Wednesday, Thursday, but things haven’t worked out as we’d have liked but let’s keep working at it.”

Rovers have been working for some time on the Adarabioyo deal as they look to make him their fifth summer signing.

“Premier League clubs have all got loan managers, directors of football, technical director’s, tiers and tiers of people underneath the manager,” Mowbray explained.

“You are generally dealing with those people.

“At this club Mark Venus is very much involved with all the negotiating, all the discussions with clubs to get the right deals and the right numbers.

“He’s very good at that, yet it’s not just the clubs you are dealing with. You’re dealing with the players, their agent, sometimes their parents, you mix it all up and it’s a difficult concontion.

“You have to agree a deal, then you have to take it to the owners, to the directors of our club and they’re difficult things to put together.

“We’re working hard.

“Certain parts of the pitch we’ve got some good options. Would we like more options? Yes. Yet I like to think I do care about my players, and it’s not the right thing sometimes to fill positions with loads of players and those who have been so good to us aren’t getting anywhere near it.

“It’s a fine balance between getting the right number and creating the right competition for places in the team, or just buying players for the sake of it.”

Rovers start their Championship campaign at home to Charlton on Saturday, with the transfer window closing on August 8.

“We’ve been working really hard for many weeks to try and get the right players in,” Mowbray added.

“We’ve had discussions with players, their agents, their clubs.

“Targets are there it’s just very difficult to nail them down.

“But the later in the window the more desperate some clubs get as they don’t want to be stuck with that players’ salary so they become available for nothing rather than the £1million they were earlier in the window.

“Let’s see how the window unfolds.

“We can do the business as late as we need to but we need to focus on the team at the moment.

“The team looks as if it’s okay. I wasn’t 100 per cent happy with it today.

“Against Bury, while they have some problems, we made them look like a team that wasn’t in our league.

“Today, for spells, I didn’t like them having shots at our goal or getting through once or twice.

“I feel if we have the ambition of taking this club where we want to this season then we have to against League One teams make them feel like we are on a different level and they can’t compete.

“I thought Blackpool worked hard and gave us some problems but ultimately we were in control.”