Gary Bowyer has thanked Rovers for their co-operation after snapping Billy Barr as his new assistant manager.

Barr left his position as Rovers Under-23s manager to take up the role at League Two side Salford.

There he will team up with former Ewood boss Bowyer who was appointed as permanent boss in the summer after finishing last season in temporary charge.

Upon appointing Barr, Bowyer said: “Absolutely delighted to be able to welcome Billy to the club, he’s someone that I’ve known for a long time and he’s going to bring a wealth of experience both with first team and obviously developing players, which is something that’s important to us.

“As well we need to thank Tony Mowbray for being so good with us and allowing us to bring Billy to the club.

“We’re looking forward to him working with our players, the staff, and I’m sure we’ll all learn off working with him, I’m looking forward to it because he’s going to make us all better.”

Barr replaced Damien Johnson as Rovers Under-23s boss in 2019 after previously leading the Under-18s.

It is a return to first-team football for the 52-year-old who previous held backroom roles at Sheffield Wednesday, Carlisle United and Wrexham.

“I’m delighted to be here, I was flattered when the gaffer made the call to see if I would be interested, then let the clubs talk about the timing between and it’s gone quite quickly in the end,” Barr explained.

“We were at the same club but we never really worked together, Gary was with the first team and I started at Blackburn in the academy, youth development coaching so we didn’t really work together but we stayed in contact when he left, then when he went back to Derby we saw each other at games.

“As I say, when the phone call came, I’d more or less made my mind up that I wanted to be a part of this amazing project and the reason I’ve come here is for us to be successful.”