Loan deals are often heralded as cheaper alternatives and a route to bring in Premier League quality to your squad.

The second part of that can be true, Tosin Adarabioyo adding some top-flight class to the backline last season, while Harrison Reed was a combative character in the midfield 12 months earlier.

However, those aren’t cheap deals to do, with top-flight clubs keen to ensure they are recompensed for allowing their young stars to leave, while also having some guarantee they will be played.

The one downside is the difficulty in replacing them, with Rovers never likely to find a central defender like Adarabioyo in terms of style, or quality, on a permanent deal, instead opting for an experienced and calm figure of Daniel Ayala.

Mowbray admits Rovers are counting every penny in their budget in a bid to make it stretch as far as it would go, and the only real consideration for a loan deal so far has been in central midfield. That could now change after the injury to Lewis Travis, but Mowbray is keen to have as many of his own players as possible to work with, despite his successes in that market in recent times.

“You go to Premier League clubs and ask for really, talented young players, who are generally on a £1.5m a year, it’s very, very hard for a club like Blackburn Rovers to get anywhere near the expectations of the parent club on what you would pay for those players,” Mowbray explained.

“We might sit here at the end of the year having spent nearly £1m for instance on a player who is not even ours who has to go back to his parent club and that money is down the drain and we finish mid-table.

“You have to be really conscious of those things and that’s why I am constantly talking to our support base about why we will try and invest in our own players because then you’re paying the wages of your own players and developing them and growing them as future assets.

“Rather than you pay the wages or part of the wages of a loan player who goes back to their parent club with an increased value and it’s all win-win for them really whereas you are £1m out of pocket.

“When you don’t (achieve your goals) it’s a lot of money spent and it’s not even your own player. So you try and recruit your own players, polish them up and create an asset value for the future.”

Rovers are keen to also promote their own Academy-based players, with more opportunities for the likes of Joe Rankin-Costello, John Buckley and Jack Vale expected this season, while Tyrhys Dolan, signed initially to be part of the Under-23s squad, has already made an impact on the first-team stage.

Rovers have avoided paying loan fees for their temporary recruits, nor would Mowbray sign up for any clauses that would see Rovers penalised should loanees not play.

That has led to the downfall of deals in the past, not least Reece James, who Mowbray revealed Rovers tried to sign in the summer of 2018, only for the Chelsea full back to join Wigan where he went on to enjoy a stellar season that saw him named in the Championship team of the year.

It was his goalscoring performance in Chelsea’s win over Brighton on Monday that reminded Mowbray of that scenario, though the benefit of missing out on that deal has been the progress Ryan Nyambe has made with a run of games under his belt.

“You have those conversations, and I’ve lost a few players that way that didn’t come here,” Mowbray said of clauses Premier League clubs look to insert.

“I was sitting watching young Reece James the other day starring for Chelsea, scored an amazing goal and yet he was sat in my office and I was telling him that we have a young player in Nyambe and you are going to have to come and compete with him.

“But they want to play. They don’t want to leave their parent clubs without the guarantee almost that they’re going coming in, starting and playing.

“My belief is that, especially with young players, as a manager you have to show me on the grass whether you’re going to play. That’s football.

“The loan market, particularly if you’re going to buy players good enough to help our first-team get out of this division, they’re going to cost more than probably the nominal money we might have to spend.”