Blackburn Rovers will mark the end of an era when they travel to Birmingham City on Saturday, as Tony Mowbray takes charge of his final game as manager of the club.

That will mark the end of a reign of more than five years at the club for Mowbray during which time he has taken Rovers from League One to a Championship play-off race, without managing to get them over the line.

On the pitch as well though, Saturday's game also looks as though it could represent a changing of the guard for Blackburn, as the final game before a number of players see their contracts with the club expire, and several more have their loan spells with the club come to an end.

But just how many of those players who could bring the curtain down on their Rovers careers at the weekend will actually get on to the St Andrew's pitch for that match, remains to be seen.

With nothing left for Rovers to play for in that final game, Mowbray suggested in the aftermath of his side's 3-0 defeat to Bournemouth last Saturday that ended their play-off hopes, that he may look to only select players who are contracted to be at the club next season.

In some ways that does make sense, giving Blackburn, and Mowbray's successor, the chance to get an idea of what they have and what is needed before the start of next, and for those players themselves to lay some sort of foundation as a new on-field unit.

However, there is certainly an argument to be made that Mowbray should at least consider handing starting berths at St Andrew's, to at least two players who as things stand, will not be at Blackburn next season, in the form of Ian Poveda and Deyovaisio Zeefuik.

In the case of Poveda, the Leeds United winger's season-long loan spell at Rovers simply has not gone to plan.

The 22-year-old managed just eight appearances for Mowbray's side before suffering a serious ankle injury in November, keeping him out until Rovers' two most recent games, when he made some encouraging cameos from the bench.

Given the fact that he has missed out on so much game time this season, there is a chance that Leeds will be open to letting Poveda head out on loan during the 2022/23 campaign, to try and get him the opportunities he should have had this time around.

It should also be noted that with many having written Poveda's season off after that injury he suffered almost six months ago, the winger's efforts to get back to being fit enough to play this side of the summer, deserve to recognised with one final outing.

Zeefuik meanwhile, has endured a similarly frustrating spell time of things at Ewood Park, since joining on loan from Hertha Berlin in the January transfer window.

The right-back has also found himself hampered by injury while at Blackburn, managing just six starts, and even now he is fit again, has been consigned to the bench for the past couple of games.

However, with Ryan Nyambe among that list of out of their contract players who look set to be leaving Ewood Park in the summer, the right-hand side of their defence is an area Blackburn will have to add to in the summer.

When he arrived in January, Zeefuik would have looked the obvious choice to do that, given Blackburn had agreed a fee with Berlin to make that move permanent.

That lack of game time though, means that Rovers have little indicator of whether or not that would be a price worth paying, so a run out in the Midlands for the Dutchman, could help give the club a clearer idea of whether or not it is worth doing so, to make him the man to step into that all important right-back role for next season.

It seems therefore, that while there are someone who may miss out on a Blackburn farewell this weekend, Poveda and Zeefuik should at least be given one on Saturday, in order to leave the door open on the possibility of a potentially important reunion, in the not too distant future.