It was a curious season for Bradley Johnson. Much like Rovers, it was very up and down.

Signed on a two-year deal from Derby County last summer, the arrival of Johnson added ready-made Championship experience, some much-needed muscle in the middle of the pitch and someone used to competing to get out of the Championship.

Along with the signing of fellow free agent Stewart Downing, there was the feeling that Tony Mowbray had identified more experience was needed to supplement the growing influence of younger players within his side. 

While signings are never guaranteed to work, his looked a sensible one.

Johnson ended the season with 25 Championship starts, nine substitute appearances, three goals and the same number of assists, not a bad return compared with numbers we’ve seen contributed from players in that role in seasons gone by.

His pass completion rate of 75.6 per cent will need to improve, his foul count a little high with 46 across the season.

The curious aspect of his capmaign however, was the nature of when those starts came about.

Johnson started well, named Rovers’ August player of the month by Mowbray, and looked like the perfect foil for Lewis Travis, having been preferred to Corry Evans in the early stages of the campaign in the preferred 4-2-3-1 system.

The first turning point of Johnson’s season was after a miserable first half in the October defeat to Birmingham City, he wouldn’t get any match minutes for eight games, until the Bristol City victory where he stormed in to action by putting Rovers ahead inside two minutes with a thunderbolt of a left foot strike.

A late assist for Adam Armstrong capped the perfect away performance by Rovers, helped by the battling midfield qualities of Johnson.

That was a fifth win in six for Rovers, their progress having come about at a time when the Travis-Evans axis was preferred in the middle of the park as the Northern Ireland international made a roaring return to form.

Evans’ unfortunate injury at the start of 2020 against Wigan presented Johnson with the chance he had been waiting for, and from the Bristol City win to the final day defeat at Luton Town, he featured in 23 of those 25 matches.

Indeed, he started Rovers’ final seven fixtures, a run matched only by the opening weeks of the campaign.

“I think he’s done well. He’s an experienced footballer,” Mowbray said.

“Like every position in the team you’ve got different options, different types of players you want to play in different types of games.

“I think he brings a physical presence to us and yet we’ve had spells in this season where we’ve talked to him about his running capacity. We need him to do more, to work hard and I think he’s taken that on board.

“I think he’s fitted into the group well. He has to cement his position in the team so that it becomes a Travis and Johnson midfield. He brings experience and power to the team.”

It was Johnson’s fitness which Mowbray mentioned after the Bristol City win in December, linking it to the amount of travelling the midfielder was doing between his home in the midlands and East Lancashire, something the midfielder has now addressed.

“I think the travelling is catching up with him. I think the travelling wore him down, he looked a bit heavy to me, “Mowbray said at the back end of last year.

There have been different roles for Johnson throughout the season, but he has looked at his best when breaking into the box from a deep midfield position and looking to get on the end of loose balls dropping inside the box, or just on the edge.

Strong in the air and with a jack-hammer of a left foot, it’s certainly a role he can fulfil, but one where fitness is crucial.

If Rovers are to continue with a 4-3-3, then he will certainly need that athleticism if he’s to play on the left of the three, but he has also been used as the deepest lying of the three which requires an ability to be disciplined, and to pick a pass.

Whatever the make-up of Mowbray’s midfield, and whether it contains two or three players, then Travis has certainly emerged as one of the first picks in the side.

Evans will have shaken off his broken toe that saw him miss the final eight games of last season in time for the new campaign, but Rovers are still waiting to learn whether Stewart Downing will sign a new deal.

The 36-year-old will provide Mowbray the control he is looking for from those central areas, but Lewis Holtby too sees himself able to occupy a similar role.

John Buckley will also hope to press on next season, as will Jacob Davenport, and with the possibility of recruiting another in that area, Mowbray won’t be short of choices.

He added: “We’ve got options in there to play footballers or to play physicality, to play legs and athleticism or to play power and size, so we’ve got a few options.

“Travis he has to keep his standards really high, keep pushing hard and we are happy with the competition those players bring each other.”

Central midfield starts:

Lewis Travis 41

Bradley Johnson 25

Stewart Downing 14

Corry Evans 11

Joe Rothwell 3

Lewis Holtby 1

John Buckley 1