Tony Mowbray has promised supporters they will have a team fighting for the cause upon their return to Ewood Park.

Rovers have now played 29 consecutive home matches behind closed doors but hope to be able to welcome fans back from the start of next season.

Around 2,500 supporters purchased season tickets for an ultimately disappointing 2020/21 season where Rovers finished 15th, and had to play all of their home fixtures to empty stands.

The club, who last staged a match in front of fans in February 2020, are yet to publish ticketing details for 2021/22.

In a message to supporters, manager Mowbray said: “When they do come back we want them to have a football team fighting for every point and giving everything they’ve got. That’s all I can ask.”

Rovers finished the campaign with three successive home wins, but had won just six of their opening 20 Ewood fixtures, Mowbray putting part of that down to the lack of supporters inside Ewood.

Eight teams in the division won more games away from their headquarters than at home, attributed to the lack of supporters, a dynamic that is hoped will change next term.

And when they do, Mowbray says his squad of players will be well aware of the importance of that.

“I hope supporters know they will have a team fighting for the cause and trying to get back to where everyone wants to be, the Premier League,” Mowbray added.

“The Championship is a real competition, teams with vastly different resources from top to bottom, all I ask is for my players that when people come to watch our team they know we are in there fighting to win every point.

“You can’t win every game, you can’t win every point, but as long as every player in a blue and white shirt on fights and gives everything he’s got when he plays for the team that’s all I can ask.

“As long as ever player knows he’s knows he’s playing for the people in the stands, who commit a lot of their life and their money to the team and haven’t been able to watch it for a year or so, that’s all I can ask.”

Meanwhile, Mowbray believes the task of winning promotion from the Championship is only getting harder.

Norwich City and Watford won immediate promotion back to the top-flight, ensuring just a one season stay in the Championship, with Bournemouth looking to complete a hat-trick in the play-offs.

Parachute teams have dominated the Championship in recent years, and Mowbray feels the gap is only going to grow between those sides and the rest of the division.

Rovers are now among that group, with next season being 10 consecutive seasons outside the Premier League.

And Mowbray said: “I hope the supporters understand where the football club is in the history of the football club at this moment.

“It isn’t Blackburn Rovers of 1995 competing and fighting at the top of the Premier League.

“While the money has ran away in the Premier League, it’s created a divide to the teams that haven’t been enjoying the Premier League and it becomes more difficult to get out of this division and all we’re trying to do is compete.

“For a lot of this season we did compete. Everyone will have their own reasons of why we fell away.

“In February we lost nearly all of our games after three wins and a draw in January and moving forward all I ask of the team is they compete and give their very best.”