Tony Mowbray says finances have come into Rovers’ thinking over players’ futures with the club having to be ‘mindful’ of their spending.

Rovers have made decisions on their out of contract players and with five loanees all going back to their parent clubs, Mowbray has stated ‘a lot of players will be leaving’.

The work to recruit their replacements is under way, but the prospect of several senior players moving on this summer will free up some much-needed finances.

Mowbray says through owners representative Suhail Pasha the budget for next season has been finalised, but that could be impacted by the possible sale of top scorer Adam Armstrong.

“I think there are financial aspects of the coming season, I think it’s only right to say that,” Mowbray told the Lancashire Telegraph.

“There’s been a pandemic, India has been particularly hard hit. We have to be very mindful of what the budgets are, where we can spend the money where the holes in the team are.

“This summer is going to have to be managed and carefully calculated and that’s what we’re trying to do.”

Rovers have seven players out of contract this summer, with Mowbray having revealed in the wake of the 1-1 draw with Rotherham United where he didn’t feature that Lewis Holtby’s future will lie away from Ewood Park.

Corry Evans is also set to leave at the end of his deal, bringing an end to his eight-year Ewood stay.

Elliott Bennett, Amari’i Bell, Charlie Mulgrew, Bradley Johnson and Stewart Downing are the other players out of contract, while the club have 12-month options in the deals of Ryan Nyambe, Joe Rankin-Costello, Joe Rothwell and Harry Chapman which they are expected to trigger.

“A lot of players will be leaving and the process of trying to recruit has started,” the manager added.

“Conversations have started, but it’s not easy. What it is is a market place where nobody really knows where the salary levels of teams are going to be.

“Agents that we’re talking to don’t seem to think there’s been a pandemic generally and their expectations of salary levels are extremely high.

“Let’s see over the summer whether they become more realistic or not.”

The pandemic has ruled out the prospect of Mowbray flying out to India to meet with the owners directly, as he did in his first three summers in charge.

Instead conversations over budgets heading into Mowbray’s fifth summer in charge of the club have been handled by the owners’ representatives.

“There’s no need to speak to the owners directly. Suhail can do all of that,” Mowbray explained.

“He can bring the numbers back through the chief executive and we can sit down around a table and look at what’s available, where the holes in the team are, what we have to spend, what are we going to do, what if this happens?

“That’s generally how it works. Suhail and the owners talk several times a day I’m sure and there’s no need to sit on a Zoom call and talk about something I already know via Suhail.”