Tony Mowbray sees room for improvement but wasn’t changing the expectations of his side.

Rovers are up to fourth after taking 19 points from eight games ahead of the trip to second-placed Bournemouth.

The impressive run has catapulted Rovers from mid-table to fourth spot with victory over Preston North End a third successive win and clean sheet.

Mowbray made public his expectation of a top six push for Rovers, but that didn’t materialise as they finished a disappointing 15th. This time around there were no such bold claims, with Rovers currently outperforming all expectations.

When asked if his had changed, Mowbray explained: “We want to play better football, try and control games if we can but all season it’s not been our go-to. Last season we wanted to dominate and have more shots and yet it costs us probably by exposing our team defensively because we were so high up the pitch.

“We’ve drawn different lines, happy to soak it up and for almost every team to have more possession than us and yet it doesn’t mean they’re going to score.

“We probably had the best opportunities (against Preston) even though they had more possession.

“That’s the way most games have been this season, teams can have the ball but when we break away and we slide our front players in behind we’re away and think we’re going to score.

“We can be a threat to every team.

“Expectation? We’ll keep working hard, growing together, stay fit, stay on the training ground and become one of the robust players so the team doesn’t change much.”

Next up for Rovers is a trip to the south cast to face high-flying Bournemouth and a real test of their credentials.

Leaders Fulham and the second-placed Cherries have stretched their advantage in the automatic promotion places in recent weeks and have lost just five times between them.

They remain the teams to beat, with West Bromwich Albion in third with Rovers tucked in behind them in fourth.

Mowbray knows it will undoubtedly be a tough test for his side, while the game brings together two of the division’s leading marksmen in Dominic Solanke and Ben Brereton who have scored 16 and 17 Championship goals respectively.

And Mowbray said of this weekend’s trip to the Vitality Stadium: “We just have to go and play the game, it’s an opportunity for us to try and tighten the league up but we have watched them and defensively they seem strong.

“It will be a chance to watch Solanke and Brereton, two players along with (Aleksandar) Mitrovic who are pulling away in the goalscoring charts.

“We go into game believing we can win, but Bournemouth and Fulham are undoubtedly the best resourced squads in the division.

“We’ll go and have a go, try and be brave and see if we can get a result.”