Blackburn Rovers manager Tony Mowbray has suggested that Ben Brereton could well be handed a more prominent role in the side during the end of season run in.

Brereton has endured a frustrating campaign with the forward struggling to establish himself ahead of some of Blackburn’s other attacking options, with the likes of Bradley Dack, Joe Rothwell, Danny Graham, Sam Gallagher and Adam Armstrong preferred ahead of him, although his cause has not been helped by missing three months through injury.

Mowbray, though, elected to bring the forward into the side for only his third start of the campaign for Rovers’ trip to Derby County on Sunday, but after failing to convert a presentable early opportunity Brereton could not really affect the game before he was brought off in the second period as Blackburn fell to a 3-0 defeat.

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Speaking to the Lancashire Telegraph, Mowbray suggested that Brereton could be set to play a key role in the side during the rest of the season and beyond, and urged him to step up and prove that he can be relied upon to make the difference for Rovers.

He said: "Definitely (on whether he can become a regular in the side), that’s why he is here. That’s why we invested the money in him really.

"It has been a waiting game and yet, as I’ve said, for 18 months, if Dack and Graham were scoring goals and the team was functioning and doing okay then that’s life, football is a competition within a competition, within our squad.

"But his time is coming and now he has to step up and be the man. Gallagher, Brereton, Armstrong, moving forward they have to score the goals that takes this club where it wants to go."

The verdict

Brereton’s time at Blackburn so far can only really be described as a disappointment, for both the forward and Rovers who invested heavily in him when they brought him in from Nottingham Forest, but a big move at a young age can affect some players and it can take time for them to develop.

Mowbray has made the decision to introduce the forward slowly into the starting line-up, which he has been able to do due to the form of some of his other options, but injuries to the likes of Dack in particular have meant that the Rovers manager now needs him to step up.

The forward could not deliver the most dangerous of attacking performances at Derby on Sunday, but he at least showed a few flashes of encouragement in what a rare start, and that is something he will have to build on moving forwards.

Mowbray certainly seems to have seen enough from him to suggest that Brereton could well become a regular in the side from now until the end of the campaign, so the chance will now be his to take which he needs to do to get his career with the club up and running.