Tony Mowbray, Blackburn Rovers’ head coach, has disclosed that he met with the Venkys in Switzerland to discuss strengthening the club’s transfer budget this summer.

Blackburn are entering their ninth consecutive season in the Championship after a one-year stay in League One, hoping to improve on their 20th-place finish last year.

Rovers have alternated between seventh-place finishes and relegation battles in the second tier during the last four seasons. If they return to the top seven this year, they will compete in the newly redesigned playoffs.

Blackburn Rovers’ first five Championship games this season

Opponent

Venue

Date

Wolves

Molineux

14th of August

Middlesbrough

Ewood Park

22nd August

QPR

Ewood Park

29th of August

Lincoln City

Sincil Bank

1st September

Preston North End

Deepdale

5th September.

However, the Championship is expected to be an extremely difficult league to get into this year, with the quality dropping from the Premier League and the enlarged postseason giving persistent mid-table sides more incentive to invest and develop.

Tony Mowbray revealed negotiations with Venky’s about boosting the transfer budget this summer.

So far, the summer transfer window at Ewood Park has been relatively calm. Jayden Fevrier became Blackburn’s first signing of the window last week, joining from Stockport County in a deal for roughly £500,000.

In a window when even freshly promoted teams are spending millions on a single player, Blackburn’s apparent lack of progress in the transfer market is cause for alarm.

Mowbray told TalkSPORT that he flew to Zurich to persuade Rovers’ owners to invest more in boosting the club’s performance this summer.”I met with the owners in Zurich at 4 a.m. yesterday to request financial assistance to help Blackburn return to the Championship and give themselves a chance,

” he stated.This year’s play-offs are down to eighth place; can we slip in? Hull City’s rise to the Premier League from 21st place two years ago demonstrates that success is possible.You can win the Championship if you recruit well, coach well, and have a team that can run through brick walls for you, even though it appears to be a very tough league this season.”

Hull’s run to the play-offs last year and subsequent victory was a near-miracle, accomplished with little significant investment due to the Tigers’ embargo at the time. Blackburn are currently functioning with little investment as well, but this will need to change if they are to launch an unexpected play-off run this season.

How Blackburn Rovers fans responded to Tony Mowbray’s interview

The connection between Blackburn fans and the Venkys has not been the best. Their relegation from the Premier League in 2012 occurred during their first full season in charge, and they have had more League One campaigns than top-flight ones thereafter.

The fact that it has taken their returning head coach to go and ask for more money to be made available in the window, rather than an awareness that it is required to improve on last season’s relegation threat, is quite alarming for them.

“We shouldn’t have to ask. “Owners should know we need it,” one Blackburn supporter wrote online in response to the TalkSPORT broadcast. “Frightening that the owners don’t realise the state we’re in,” another said.Is this the latest example of a management being misled about the transfer budget? “They usually don’t cotton on until January,” a fan joked, implying that managers’ frustration with a lack of budget at Ewood Park is not new.

Others expressed their dissatisfaction with the recruitment team and current head of football operations Rudy Gestede, with one remarking, “We have a CEO, Pasha, and Rudy, but the Manager still has to ask.”

Tony Mowbray’s investment plea throws a worrying shadow on the eve of the new season.

The only positive aspect of Blackburn’s quiet transfer window this summer is that there haven’t been many notable exits to accompany their one addition.

Sondre Tronstad and Ryan Hedges were the most visible departures, but both spent significant time on the sidelines last season, thus the nucleus of the group from last year’s strong finish under Michael O’Neill remains intact.

That squad shown that they could be a top-half team, scoring the 11th most points in the 15 games overseen by the Northern Ireland manager last year to finish five points above the drop.

However, as Mowbray stated, the Championship standard is stronger this year, and simply staying still might push Blackburn closer to the trapdoor.

With the veteran head coach back in the dugout, there’s always hope that Rovers can do something this season, but without the means to aid him, it casts a troubling shadow over their EFL Cup opening against Burton Albion on Saturday.