This was a game between a team who didn’t try to score and one that try as they might, couldn’t. One who didn’t attack against one who did nothing but. Rovers completed 581 passes, Stoke barely passed the halfway line.

For as hard as Rovers pressed for a goal, the one they gave away was all too easy, undone by a simple throw in routine as a Morgan Fox cross saw Nick Powell ghost between a flat-footed defence to head home.

Conceding early isn’t ideal. Doing so against a team with five clean sheets in six particularly damaging and simply playing into Stoke's hands.

Behind inside seven minutes, the pattern for the next 83, plus a surprisingly light, four added on, was Stoke posing the question: ‘can you break us down?’ Some 581 passes were completed, but none of them led to Rovers finding the right finish. The answer to it was a decisive ‘no’.

It all felt a little predictable. Stoke sucked the life out of the game, James Chester booked for timewasting just 36 minutes an indication of that. The ball seemed to take an age to come back into play when it went dead, 70 seconds between the award of one free kick and it being taken.

That appears part of the growing blueprint on how to shut out this Rovers side, with Mowbray’s men having now failed to score on six occasions, with now three 1-0 defeats to add to two stalemates and the 2-0 loss at Swansea. Sit deep, slow the game down, defend the width of the 18-yard box, don’t press the ball, characteristics that Rovers have proven difficult to overcome. Rovers' early season free-scoring is a reputation that looks to be working against them.

There was a somewhat scattergun approach to the substitutions late on too, a feeling of ‘if you’ve got five you might as well use them’. John Buckley was brought on at right back, but then quickly moved inside as Harry Chapman came on, he and fellow substitute Tyrhys Dolan playing in virtually the same position.

With Buckley, Dolan, Chapman and Dan Butterworth introduced, adding to Harvey Elliott and Adam Armstrong, Rovers finished the game with what must have been one of their youngest, and smallest, attacking lines. This against a Stoke defence who looked like land of the giants in comparison.

Even the conditions helped keep Rovers at bay, the trademark swirling wind and sweeping rain arriving late on, allowing Stoke to play for territory with their clearances, one from just outside their penalty box going out for a Rovers goal kick.

While Rovers were never likely to win any aerial challenges from balls into the box, the wind almost worked in their favour, only to fail to profit from some loose bits of handling from 'keeper Joe Bursik.

After that particularly warning, and barely set foot over the halfway line, a Jordan Cousins long-range sailing wide ending a 63 minute wait for a shot at goal, which proved to be their second and final attempt.

Not that it was raining shots at the other end, the hosts doing a good job of getting their bodies in the way, though Armstrong would have been disappointed to flash one wide of the post when collecting a Johnson pass.

The closest they came to an equaliser arrived midway through the first half, one full back crossing for another as Ryan Nyambe’s delivery landed at the feet of Barry Douglas, his shot crashing back off the post.

The pattern continues in terms of progress and personnel, that one step forward is followed by one back. The central defensive door continues to be an ever revolving one, and for the next third consecutive season Rovers have had spells without three senior centre halves at the same time.

How much this side has missed Ben Brereton. His departure from the side in the last four matches has left them imbalanced, the right flank of Elliott and Nyambe the only one where they appear to find any momentum.

Lewis Holtby, for all his talent, is yet to contribute a goal or an assist, in his 16 Championship outings, while the prospects of scoring from a set play appear as remote as...something very remote.

Rovers must start to find greater goal contributions from across the squad. Only four times this season has a Rovers player scored in a game that Armstrong hasn’t (Watford, Luton, Brentford and Norwich).

Having clear and defined patterns of play is a positive, a sign of repetitive work on the training pitch, but when things aren’t going in your favour, can give an outlook of predictability and easily worked out.

Right now they are finding ways to lose. Games against Bristol City, Norwich and now stoke they have done little wrong, yet come away with nothing. The Rotherham United result was something of a rarity, as a trend of conceding first and finding now way back as worrying a trend as is having four points from the 10 games against sides above them in the standings.

You can use statistics to suit any agenda you want. Rovers are 11th with eight defeats in 20 Championship matches, but yet only five points outside the play-offs. The only stat that went in favour of Stoke here was the one that mattered: 1-0.