Rovers’ six-game winning run to end 2021 is starting to look like the anomaly in a season which is showing all too familiar hallmarks.
That haul of 18 points from six games, which included five clean sheets, catapulted them into a position from which they couldn’t take a backward step. The chance afforded to them was one that doesn’t come around every season.
Yet, where previously the play-offs looked to be the safety net, two wins in 15 games and a failure to score in 11 of their previous 17 matches, has seen them slide all but out of contention - based not on the three-point gap to the play-offs, but their form.
It is through that form to end 2021, and the failure of those above them to close the door, that has kept them still in with a chance, but with Rovers not in action until next Monday, any last hope could well be over by the time they next kick a ball.
The season has unravelled at quite a pace. Familiar feelings and failings have reared their head at the most crucial time.
And it has led to questions over Rovers’ longer-term direction.
For so long Tony Mowbray has been the spokesperson of the club to supporters, his voice the most prominent one on matters on and off the field, bridging the gap to the Rovers hierarchy.
The manager batted away suggestions that the immediate futures of many of Rovers’ first-team players, as well as himself, have had an impact on how the second of the season has played out.
Yet the lack of clarity over the club’s longer-term direction will create concern among supporters who will soon be asked to part with their cash as season tickets prepare to go on sale.
The prospect of another rebuild is in store, with three regular starters, including the club captain, likely to move on while the 21-goal top scorer also faces an uncertain future.
With little word from the club on what the future holds for the manager, whose only words on the subject have been to confirm that no talks haven taken place, will unlikely fill the paying supporter with much confidence.
While Rovers have performed better than expected this season even with the dramatic downturn in form, seeing Huddersfield Town and Luton Town riding high makes the ‘punching above our weight’ argument harder to side with.
The worry heading into 2022 was the prospect of the January transfer window derailing Rovers’ season.
The club stuck to their guns to keep the squad together, but with one loan signing in Ryan Giles dropped from the 18 against Stoke City, Deyovaisio Zeefuik and Dilan Markanday both on the treatment table, and Ryan Hedges having only managed 155 minutes across eight Championship outings, leaves those dealings feeling like a missed opportunity to really kick on.
Markanday’s injury was unfortunate, while Hedges will point to a lack of minutes, and with both tied to long-term contracts, there will be plenty more to come from the pair.
But there seemed a conflict between manager and owners over the prospect of selling to strengthen, but Venky’s weren’t for budging.
With the prospect of three first-team stars moving on for nothing in the summer, gaps in the team will emerge, and with around £2m spent over the course of the last five transfer windows, it will be no easy task, even if there are the makings of a promising framework from which to build.
The club will continue to lean on the excellent Academy, this week having seen Lewis Travis, Ryan Nyambe and Darragh Lenihan mark milestone appearances (150, 200 and 250 games respectively) while John Buckley has emerged as a player the club can build around moving forward.
But it feels a mentality shift, is what is most required for Rovers to make the step that has proved elusive since relegation from the Premier League.
The expectation was built on that six-game winning run, as only once previously, and not since, have Rovers won back-to-back matches this season. The fact they have fallen from such a height tilts the view of the season as if they had made steady progress throughout it to sit in the position they do.
And there have been undoubted success stories, the emergence and development of players has been a continual theme, in Ben Brereton they have what everyone in the division craves, a 20-goal striker, but the season panning out in the way it has shown Rovers haven’t been able to shaky their streaky tag.
There have been tactical and selection issues too. Rovers' policy of sticking with the back three and wing-backs feels largely down to the difficulty Mowbray would have over which one of his central defenders to leave out.
Even with two defensive midfielders in Travis and Bradley Johnson ahead of them, they were far too easily to play through, while at the other end there was no link between what was a defensive seven and an attacking three.
Only with the introductions of Rothwell and later Buckley did Rovers manage to gain any semblance of control against a Stoke side who were over-ran by the Rovers midfield in the November meeting.
Mowbray’s comments aimed at a ‘difficult atmosphere’ won’t have sat well with supporters who have backed their team to the hilt this season, particularly on the road, and in the second half they showed that give them something to get behind and they will.
The concerns of how Rovers would fare with changes to the team, Brereton’s goals drying up and when the pressure really intensify have proved to be correct.
Rovers still need seven points from their final three games to match the 70 points they got in 2013/14, their most since relegation to the Premier League, while they cannot now achieve the 75-point average needed for a play-off spot.
The tide could well be lower, offering the last possible glimmer of hope, but that only adds to the disappointment of how things have played out. While others have done their part to keep themselves in the race, Rovers haven’t held up their end of the bargain.
Recent weeks have led to the feeling that this is becoming something more than just an end to a football season, which will only lead to the need for clarity over the club's longer-term direction.
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