Tony Mowbray says Rovers must ‘dig in’ during a crucial period in which the chasing pack will look to close the gap.

Rovers face Middlesbrough tonight, a side who have won four consecutive matches to boost their promotion hopes.

Mowbray expects his hometown club to be right in the mix for promotion but a positive result for Rovers would lift them into second place after defeat for Bournemouth at the weekend.

Rovers are entering a tough run of fixtures that will see them face fellow promotion-chasers West Bromwich Albion, Sheffield United, Nottingham Forest and QPR before the end of next month.

Mowbray’s men currently have a cushion on the chasing pack and will still be looking up in pursuit of the top two, but the Rovers boss says he can feel the chasing pack coming after weekend wins for a number of the sides around them.

He said: “The teams that are there are coming, you can feel the competition is going to be strong over the last 19 games of the season.

“We just have to dig in, stay in the pack, keep going, we know where we are as a club, the resource these other clubs have got but we have got to where we have by hard work and the collectiveness of our team and we have to keep that going.

“It’s a bit frustrating that I can’t keep it going whether it be because of injury, Covid or suspension, it’s difficult.

“It’s then when you look at your squad depth and that’s when the bigger resourced football teams have the advantage.

“Hopefully we can keep it going, keep the protocols really tight, keep everyone available for as long as possible.”

Mowbray has won promotion from the Championship before with West Brom and been involved in a number of promotion battles along the way.

He knows the magnitude of each game ramps up as they count down and feels the next period of games is key to set things up for the final straight.

“When you get down to single figure games and you’re counting them down, every one is a cup final,” Mowbray added.

“In season’s gone by in the Championship, has it petered out? We scored five in our last two home games of last season but it didn’t mean that much and you can easily cast it off as not meaning too much.

“This season will hopefully be a bit different for us if in the next 10 games we can make the last nine games really exciting.

“We have to dig in while we’re having a little bit of adversity around the selection issues we have to find some results and dig in.

“When I look at the fixture list there are some really tough games coming.

“There are no easy games as we found with Hull and Bournemouth found as well, against any team there are no easy games so you have to be right yourself.”

Boro’s form has picked up since Chris Wilder replaced Neil Warnock at the Riverside helm.

They have won four successive matches to move into play-off contention and Mowbray added: “Chris has implemented his own ideas on the club. I’ve spent a lot of time watching their games.

“They play lots of nice triangles down the sides, they’re a bright team, quick free-kicks, they look a threat from corners, they have some athleticism and some big lads and they’re not a team who want to have all of the ball, similar to ourselves.

“They know how they can win football matches, they have an experienced manager who’s getting the best out of his group and they’re doing very well at the moment.”