TONY Mowbray doesn’t see the signing of Thomas Kaminski as a watershed moment.

That’s despite the Belgian being the first product of Rovers’ investment in their recruitment department which has focused heavily on the European market in the last 12 months.

Rovers missed on two goalkeeping targets, as well as two central midfielders, who were identified last summer, with all five signings last summer being domestic options.

Lewis Holtby did arrive last September, after leaving Hamburg, but had previous experience of playing in England with both Tottenham and Fulham.

Kaminski arrived from AA Gent having been shortlisted by the club in their search for a new goalkeeper, the 27-year-old joining for an undisclosed fee.

Rovers will focus on the domestic market when it comes to adding in central defence, but more overseas signings haven’t been ruled out, with the Russian press having linked them with a move for 21-year-old CSKA midfielder Jaka Bijol.

When asked if he felt Kaminski’s signing could pave the way for more signings from Europe, Mowbray said: “It doesn’t feel anything new to me because I’ve been looking at overseas players for what feels like over a year now.

“I think we are in the market, we know a lot about players abroad and everything has to line up for you to sign them.

“You have to have the finance, fulfil their expectations of them coming to England and what their salary expectations will be, the club you’re buying from seem to think when an English club comes in they’re all Manchester United and you have hundreds of  millions of pounds to spend.

“We’re in the market, we have lists of players who are free transfers, a list of players who might come on loan, ones who might cost £1m, lists of players who might cost up to £5m, we have lots of players at different levels.

“Thomas was on one of those lists and we’ve watched him quite closely, asked lots of questions and he’s here and we hope he fits in to the culture of our club and how we want to play and that he enjoys his experience here.”

Mowbray made investing, and improving, Rovers’ recruitment department one of his key tasks after securing promotion back to the Championship in 2018.

The League One promotion side was largely built on signings that Mowbray had either previously worked with, or had impressed him when on opposing teams.

Rovers are now looking to build a new identity after their promotion two years ago, with five players  who were part of that side having left at the end of their contracts, and Charlie Mulgrew and Derrick Williams among those who could move on this summer.

Much of the analysis of players now is done based upon data, and with the coronavirus pandemic restricting travel across Europe, Mowbray says viewing footage on laptops has become vital.

He added: “We have invested in our recruitment department with some detailed technology and the days of an agent phoning you up and you look at videos of a player are gone.

“There’s a lot of data out in the world at the moment, and if you talk about data, algorithms, reports, ideally there’s nothing better than your manager, or head of recruitment, or one of your scouts going to watch a player live and getting a strong personal opinion, but you back all that up with data.

“For the manager, you still get all the calls from agents, and have some have interesting names for you, then you can back it up with the data.

“All the data is there to back up what your eyes are telling you and it’s a combination of you getting to where you want to get to.”