The Championship transfer market has proved slow going, with Rovers far from being alone in still waiting to make their first signing.

Only 13 transfers have been completed, with 14 of the 24 clubs yet to make their first foray in to the market, despite the window having been brought forward from August 31 to August 8.

So why have things been such slow going?

Despite most clubs returning to pre-season next week, with Rovers players reporting back to Brockhall on Monday, most would have hoped for more deals to have been done.

Profit and sustainability were buzz-words in the Championship last season, with claims and counter claims of deceiving rules being made, while Birmingham City were hit with a nine-point deduction.

Many clubs are cutting their cloth after failed promotion bids in recent years.

Reports this week suggest Reading and Sheffield Wednesday are both operating within a ‘soft embargo’, with secrecy surrounding the pair’s situation.

Six clubs (Birmingham City, Hull City, Middlesbrough, QPR and Swansea) will start the new season with a different manager to the one they had at the end of the 2018/19, with uncertainty also surrounding the future of Derby boss Frank Lampard.

Infact, Tony Mowbray is one of only six managers to still be in charge from the opening day of last season.

That uncertainty will have been a factor behind the slow start to the market, as will the financial circumstances. 

Teams are wanting to maximise any potential sales, ruling out many Championship-Championship deals, with Luke Thomas’ move from Derby to Barnsley the only cash deal so far involving two second tier clubs.

Brentford have dipped in to the Scottish, and Italian market, to make their first market moves, while Birmingham brought in Gary Gardner from Aston Villa in a deal which saw Jota go the other way. Macauley Bonne joined Charlton from Leyton Orient, with a clutch of free transfers completing the business so far.

Tommy Elphick (Huddersfield), Patrick Bauer (Preston), Graeme Shinnie (Derby) and Callum McManaman (Luton) are free agents to get fixed up.

Released players see their deals at their current clubs run to June 30, so business may well start to hot up then, particularly with teams reporting back for pre-season.

Rovers will look to bring up to five new signings, a clear indication that Mowbray is happy with his group as a whole, but feels strengthening is required to improve on last season’s 15th-placed finish.

They will need to source players able to do that, but shopping in such a market is unlikely to come cheap. Experience is sought after, but again, these players have likely been used to earning tidy sums.

Reaction from supporters to missing out on Patrick Bauer would likely have had as much to do with still not having signed a player than missing out on the German central defender, even though he had been a long-term target for the club.

Signings will arrive, Mowbray has stressed as much, and as ever, any judgements on the window will be made when it is closed, rather than with seven weeks to go. But more important, the proof will be on the pitch, and after Rovers’ fixture list was released this morning, a daunting start shows how important having a settled squad early on could be.

History with Mowbray’s signings suggest very few come straight in to the side, and under his tenure, Rovers have often done their business later than earlier. Only when they were the big fish in League One were they able to really make early inroads.

But with likely interest in three key assets, David Raya, Darragh Lenihan and Bradley Dack, these players will need to see progress to remain happily a part of Mowbray’s project.

It is tough to see Rovers improving vastly on last season without an injection of fresh faces, and the work of the next seven weeks could well dictate how lofty the ambitions are for next season.