It was a deadline day move that took everyone by surprise, so much so that it took until 10am the following morning to be ratified by the EFL, as Charlie Mulgrew switched Rovers for Wigan in the summer on a season-long loan.

That included a January release clause, as well as one ensuring that the 33-year-old isn’t available to feature against his parent club.

Mulgrew is currently out injured anyway, having come off in the Latics’ defeat to Luton earlier this month, and missed draws with West Brom and Huddersfield, so will be an interested spectator on Monday night.

The left-footed defender captained Rovers for each of the last two seasons, but following the arrival of Manchester City loanee Tosin Adarabioyo, and Derrick Williams being considered for a central defensive role, Mulgrew fell down the pecking order at Ewood Park.

He felt more game-time would be on offer at Wigan, despite starting for Rovers in their opening day defeat to Charlton, and he has since started 13 times and made a further two appearances as a substitute for Paul Cook’s side.

Rovers will look to add to their defensive ranks in January, having also lost left back Greg Cunningham for the season to injury, and although Mowbray hasn’t ruled it out, a new year return for Mulgrew appears unlikely.

“I have had some conversations with (Wigan director) Joe Royle about that. But as I said to Joe, I don’t have to make a decision today. He’s on loan until January,” Mowbray said.

“I get on very well with Charlie Mulgrew, his young son is in our academy and he’s been in my office, with all due respect to Charlie who did very well for two years and is a Scotland international, we did lost 69 goals last season.

“Mulgrew was part of that, not saying that it was a one man issue, it was a defensive issue, a consistency issue.

“I went in to this season with a different game-plan of how we were going to play and to approach games.

“Charlie was told that he wouldn’t be a starter every game and at his age he wanted to be more assured of playing and that’s what happened.

“It wasn’t ‘get rid of Charlie Mulgrew’, it was a conversation between two adults. He wouldn’t be guaranteed to play at Wigan but he felt he had a better chance than he would have had at Blackburn Rovers.

“I’ll talk to him again in January and see what his thoughts are and how we feel the team is doing.

“IWe’ll make that call when we need to.”

Wigan have taken 18 points from their 22 matches so far, leaving them in the Championship dropzone ahead of their arrival at Ewood Park, and are without an away win so far.

Mulgrew, one league game short of a century for Rovers, has another year left to run on his contract at the club but Wigan have already made enquiries about making his switch permanent.

And Mowbray says his desire to play a higher defensive line this season contributed to the decision to allow the club captain to move on when the opportunity arose.

“Charlie has done well for them in the way they play,” he added.

“I’ve been watching a lot of him and he’s hitting a lot of long diagonals off his left foot to Kieffer Moore, very much as we would have played in to Danny Graham for a long time.

“Yet I’m trying to grow the club. You can take a football club so far by playing that type of football, in my opinion, or that brand of football. We got out of League One and consolidated in the Championship by doing it.

“We’re in a period of transition trying to do something different and trying to give us a better chance of being a team moving towards the top end of the table and not sit around the middle of the table.

“I don’t want to make it an issue because I’m more interested at the moment in players who are available for us to play.”