The message from Tony Mowbray is to ‘keep believing’ as he feels another unbeaten run is well within their grasp.

Rovers have twice gone unbeaten for a whole month, in November and January, but they have lost each of their four matches so far in February.

They end the month with back-to-back home games against Watford tonight and Coventry City on Saturday, and Mowbray feels he has seen more than enough from his side to suggest the tide will turn.

“The team are working really hard, they’re getting into attacking areas, moving the ball up the pitch well, the two young lads who played at the back defended very well, and I think there were lots of positives (at Nottingham Forest), he said.

“They don’t disappear off the radar, but the Barnsley game and Preston at home I don’t think we functioned, for whatever reason, you can have games when you’re not quite at it and it can just be the run of games.

“I think this team has functioned pretty well all season, the QPR game, the start of this poor run, the performance didn’t warrant getting beat, but we did.

“My message is to keep going, keep believing, it’ll turn and you can comfortably go a month without losing a game and win four or five on the bounce and we can do that.”

Mowbray felt the positives in the 1-0 defeat at Nottingham Forest came from the way they moved the ball around, the performances of loanees Taylor Harwood-Bellis and Jarrad Branthwaite, as well as striker Adam Armstrong, who, despite missing a second half penalty, the manager felt showed his Premier League qualities.

Defeats against Barnsley and Preston North End are the two where Mowbray didn’t feel his side did themselves justice, but he remains firm in his belief there have been positive strides this season, even if results haven’t always gone their way.

“The two previous games were frustrating and disappointing for us and it (Forest) was more of a team we recognised and played in the manner of how we would want to win but ultimately we didn’t manage to take any reward for it,” Mowbray said.

“At the risk of repeating myself, I’m a performance related coach, I want to see my team play well and I’m never happy to lose, but sometimes it lessens the hurt when the team have functioned and created lots of chances and dominated possession.

“Of course we want to win. I sat and watched Brighton v Crystal Palace and it was unbelievable how Crystal Palace won that football match, it was so one-sided yet they lost 2-1 in the last minute.

“I feel that we play pretty well and the team functions and we take the game-plan onto the pitch, we’re dominant of possession, we’ve had the second most shots in the league, yet the reflection is the table and the table doesn’t lie and the points you’ve accrued is where you are.

“The team has got its growth areas and there’s been a frustration with the inability to put a team on the pitch we feel can win football matches but I think the desire of the team is still very much there and was against Forest where I thought we gave a decent account of ourselves.”