Tony Mowbray feels the best way of building a team capable of challenging the Championship’s top six is by gradual improvement in every transfer window.

Mowbray is looking to add to his squad when the transfer re-opens on January 1, but says splashing the cash on a number of players to try and reach the play-off spots wouldn’t be the right thing to do.

Rovers are 14th in the table ahead of today’s trip to Leeds United having won just one of their last seven matches.

The boss is targeting gradual improvement as they rebuild back in the Championship following promotion from League One.

And on his January plans, Mowbray said: “At this moment we’re six months out of coming out of League One with the same players, we’ve been assessing them on how they cope in this division and I felt they warranted and deserved an opportunity to play in this league.

“If you’re ambition is to be in the top six then we’ve fallen a bit short, the Birmingham game might epitomise that where from a winning position we managed to drop two points.

“That’s the first time that’s happened and whether it’s a bit more experience, guile, there are a lot of aspects you have to look at to improve the team.

“I’m not saying that January is a month where we can go and buy four players and be world beaters.

“That doesn’t happen, but let’s try and improve certain areas of the pitch, create greater competition and in the starting XI and see where it takes us.

“You have to build the underbelly as well so you have lots of players bubbling away and when their opportunity comes they can grab it.

“It’s about improving your team to give you the best chance of winning games.”

Rovers have been in the top half of the table for the majority of the season, but slipped to 14th after the weekend defeat to Norwich.

A tough period of games continues with today’s trip to Leeds United, before heading to Sheffield United on December 29 and hosting West Brom on January 1.

Rovers are committed to signing Ben Brereton permanently from Nottingham Forest next month, while another striker is likely to be high on Mowbray’s wishlist.

“I’ll discuss with the owners what’s next and the bigger picture for me is a continual improvement of the team,” the boss added.

“That’s the most important thing.

“I don’t want to sit here and say ‘we’re going to spend x number of millions of pounds and the only ambition is to get in to the top six’.

“The best way to do it is to build the club so that we feel we are getting stronger with every window.

“Then the natural anticipation of what’s expected happens.

“If you have one of the best teams, recruited pretty well and got lots of good players then you should you expect to win football matches that would propel us towards the top end of the division.”

Keen not to lose focus on the upcoming games however, he added: “We have got some important and exciting games to play before January.

“They will be some challenges for us but generally we have risen to those challenges against the bigger teams in this league.”