Tony Mowbray remains convinced his side are showing positive signs, and maintains a possession-based approach is the right way forward.

Rovers dominated the ball throughout at Reading but couldn’t find a way through and were punished for Harvey Elliott’s first half mistake as George Puscas’ goal gave the hosts a 1-0 victory.

It was a repeat of many games for Rovers this season in which they have enjoyed countless possession but been unable to break down the opposition. It was also a sixth defeat in seven matches, with one point from the last 21 available seeing them slide down the table to 15th.

“Sometimes I’ll be really upset if we win 1-0 and we were terrible, and tonight I feel alright, the team know we’re going in the right direction,” Mowbray said.

“I believe the teams who get out of this league when they get recruitment right are the ones that dominate possession, have a style of play, an identity, have the most shots, that’s how you get out of a league. You don’t fluke yourself out of the league.

“We’re on a journey, but if that journey for me stops, then I want to make sure the club don’t throw it all out and start again with something different.

“We have some players here who can play, are young and are hungry to get to the top. I think some of them are on the right journey but let’s see what happens.

“Instant football, everyone wants it today. Thankfully I don’t engage in any social media but I get made aware of the discontent within the fanbase.

“I think our team feed off the emotion of the crowd, Blackburn is a working class town with working class fans who expect their team to fight and to tackle and give everything they can in every game

“I think they’re a young side who are giving everything they’ve got, if it’s not enough for the fans, that’s fine, I’ll take a rest and go and see my kids and start again whenever the opportunity comes.”

Mowbray is into his third full season of managing Rovers in the Championship, and with 40 points from their 33 games, they remain 20 behind the tally they achieved in their first season after promotion, which was bettered last season as they ended on 63.

Asked how concerned he was by the run of results which has seen Rovers plummet down the table, Mowbray added: “We have to keep working hard, keep believing in each other, keep working on the training ground.

“We don’t like losing six out of seven, it’s the way it rolls and I’ve said in the past it's not just Blackburn Rovers. I see lots of positives in this team.

“It’s really frustrating for them, I think a home crowd would help this team, the emotion of Ewood, because I think it’s hard for this team to play football in such a vacuum really.

“Yet as they did again, I think they can dominate football matches.

“We didn’t get our rewards.”

It was another disappointing night in front of goal for Rovers, who Ben Brereton apart, struggled to create opportunities and failed to score for a ninth time this season.

“I’d rather be playing that game than one where we were getting beat 3-0 every week and have no idea of where we were going to go,” Mowbray explained.

“I think it’s a game where we’re in charge, composed, controlling it and we have to try and find the answers.

“I think the last 20 metres are hurting us, the final balls in, the last little pass, yet I don’t know how many shots we had, probably not enough.

“Brereton threatened their goal, we had some half chances in the second half, Nyambe should have scored back stick, it’s not every game you can create 20 chances but there were lots of positives.

“I think we probably didn’t get what we deserved, but you have to score to give yourselves a chance to win.

“Plenty of positives, I said to them afterwards that there was a lot to be positive about but ultimately we didn’t create enough from all the possession we had.

“Yet I didn’t think they hurt us. We gave them the goal from a really poor mistake from Harvey. As I said to Harvey, all that he has brought this season it was difficult to criticise him. He’s been amazing for us.

“It’s a frustrating night for us to come away with nothing in a game that we deserved something from.”