Bringing the best out of the players at the club’s disposal and finding a style that suits their attributes has been a key focus for Rovers this season.

Having worked extensively on a possession-based style last season that has been replaced by a more counter-attacking approach in this campaign.

The win over Peterborough United was the first game this season in which they have won and had more than 50 per cent possession, but that hasn’t hindered their attacking threat with only the division’s top two having scored more goals.

A high turnover of players in the summer was always expected but not necessarily the big shift in playing style, one manager Tony Mowbray felt was essential.

He said: “We just have to keep going, keep growing this football club. I feel as though my best traits as a football manager are to develop, improve players and teams.

“Ideally you would have wanted to keep a lot of the players we lost in the summer but we couldn’t and we had to find a way of playing this team could develop into and that’s something we’ve worked hard on, identifying how best this team could win football matches.

“We didn’t believe we could dominate possession like we did last year because of the players in the key positions.

“The players who play most weeks, Travis, Lenihan, Nyambe, they’re not what you’d call silky footballers but they have other assets and traits and you have to play the way that suits the players you’ve got.

“We’ve been trying to find a way that suits the players we’ve got and we’re doing okay.”

Rovers’ haul of 30 points after 19 games isn’t one Mowbray is concerning himself with, knowing how quickly things can change, with the 7-0 defeat at Fulham having come on the back of successive league wins over Reading and Derby.

They have since put together a run of two wins and a draw from their next three games to sit one place outside the play-offs.

Tomorrow’s opponents occupy the final play-off spot but Mowbray doesn’t see the game as a yardstick of their play-off credentials and says the focus within the club is simply on improvement.

“You sat here less than a month ago asking the questions that your job demands, within another a month are you going to be back on that ladder?," he said of the reaction to the 7-0 defeat to Fulham.

“I don’t sit here thinking ‘oh aren’t we great’ or when things are negative ‘aren’t we terrible’ because in-house at this football club we keep a level head and keep believing that we can win football matches.

“I’m not getting carried away because I’m very aware we could go to Stoke and get turned over, but what we will do is go there and give the best account of ourselves and pick a team we believe can beat them.

“Points accrued, all that matters is where we are after 46 games not after 19 or 20 games, it doesn’t mean anything because if we lose the next three games you’ll be asking questions. That’s football nowadays and you have to find a consistency to win games.”