Tony Mowbray feels Rovers are locked in a contract dilemma but has assured supporters the club are doing all they can to keep hold of their best players.

The manager says any potential January departures will be in a bid to raise funds to reinvest in the squad, and only if contract negotiations have been fully explored.

Two of Rovers’ stars at the weekend, Joe Rothwell and Ryan Nyambe, are among those whose deals expire at the end of the season, as well as captain Darragh Lenihan and top scorer Ben Brereton.

While the club have an option to extend Brereton’s contract by a further 12 months, Rovers are facing a similar conundrum with the Chile international as they did with last season’s top scorer Adam Armstrong.

And Mowbray said:  “Some will get done, some won’t get done, so if somewhere down the line a player who the support base might think ‘why are we selling him?’ well it’s not because we don’t want to sign them up, we like all of our players but sometimes the numbers get too big for the situation and the most important thing is the club doesn’t get put in financial danger.”

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Chants from supporters during the weekend’s draw with Coventry City weren’t lost on manager Tony Mowbray – even if he wasn’t sure which player the ‘sign him up’ shout referred to.

The Rovers boss re-iterated the club’s desire to keep hold of all their best players in a bid to progress and feels he has seen great development in a number of his squad.

They include right back Nyambe who has become a hit with supporters in his 178 appearances since graduating through the Academy, but a player the club face losing on a free transfer in the summer unless his contractual situation is addressed.

Chief executive Steve Waggott has previously outlined how the club are close to maximising their offers for some players given the wage structure in place.

Updating supporters, Mowbray said: “The bigger question is are we keeping these players or are we going to have to sell these players? Are the contracts going to get agreed or are they not going to get agreed?

“If they aren’t then we need to sell them and reinvest some of the money into the team and keep moving the team forward.

“I like a lot of these players and would prefer they all sign and we keep a core together that can move forward and we can keep adding to it.

“I think it’s important for the club moving forward, the pandemic created a real problem for clubs that had no money to spend at the time and players’ contracts all ran down a year and we find ourselves, as a lot of clubs will, in a position where are they going to lose assets for nothing?

“Do you sell them in January to try and make a bit of money to try and reinvest in someone else, or are you going to do it on free transfers because you’ve lost some of your best players? Those are the dilemmas for as a club at the moment.”

The January window will be the final time that Rovers will be able to recoup fees for Nyambe, Rothwell and Lenihan who will all be over the age of 24 by the time their contracts expire, ruling out any hopes of compensation.

Brereton is a different case in point, with the club possessing a 12-month option in his current deal that will keep him under contract until 2023.

Mowbray previously disclosed how he felt Adam Armstrong’s contractual status prior to his move to Southampton cost the club in the region of £10m as he headed into his final year.

And he added: “As a club we talk about that on a weekly basis, not on a daily basis because the football is happening every three days, but we’re talking Mr Waggott, myself, Suhail, Mark Venus, we have sit down discussions constantly about these things because it’s our job.

“We’re trying to build this football club and they’re some really difficult conversations because there are a lot of parties involved in it and they’re not easy discussions.”

Rovers’ latest accounts, to June 2020, showed the club’s wage to turnover ratio was an eye-watering 190 per cent despite the wage structure in place, although several high-profile have left the club since then.

The fee recouped for Armstrong went unspent in the summer, with Tayo Edun’s additional the only permanent signing, with Rovers now facing the prospect of losing several other key performers.

“Every football club is the same, you lose your best players you aren’t going to be the same team, unless you reinvest the money,” Mowbray said.

“Brentford are a classic case of that with the players they’ve sold. Why did they sell them? Maybe it was because they wanted more salary than what your club pays? Maybe Brentford’s players wanted Premier League salaries when Brentford weren’t in the Premier League, and they don’t pay that sort of money, so what do you do when you have a player that isn’t going to sign and wants too much money?

“I think the only answer is to sell, but get your recruitment and reinvest in really good players that become the new heroes of the supporters and you keep growing the club.

“I hear the supporters singing ‘sign him up’, I wasn’t sure they were singing about Nyambe after doing something well, or Brereton when he came on, Rothwell, they’re not privy to the things I’m privy to and yet they are really difficult situations for this club to deal with at this moment.

“We all hope that we can sign all the players we want and we can keep progressing forward and they see this as a vehicle to help them progress towards the Premier League and we hope they’ll help this club to have a chance of getting to the Premier League.”