Tony Mowbray saw Rovers as a project he could get his teeth in to as he marks three years in charge at Ewood.

The manager hopes his personality has played a part in rebuilding Rovers from a team sliding towards League One to one dreaming of a Premier League return in three years.

Mowbray marks the milestone at Brentford tomorrow, having replaced Owen Coyle in 2017, with Rovers three points off the Championship top six.

Rovers were relegated at Griffin Park in May 2017 before Mowbray flew to meet owners Venky’s and returned with a new contract and assurances he wouldn’t be forced in to selling players as he sought to turn the club’s fortunes around.

He said: “I went over there and found some nice, humble people.

“I was in their hands. If I went over there and they saw relegation as a failure then that was fine. I was just happy to be at a football club with a resource.

“This club had a structure, an amazing training facility, some investment in it, some good players, it was like a project to get my teeth in to.

“I wanted to bring those human qualities to a club and set the standard that the players would adhere to, respect and want to be a part of. That’s what I’ve tried to do. I like to feel I’m at a club that wants to grow.

“I’m enjoying the journey, how long it lasts, who knows? You could lose the next four matches and lose your job, but maybe people see the bigger picture that we’re moving in the right direction and not looking over our shoulders thinking ‘are we going to get relegated?’

“We’re actually trying to move the club forward so we’re only looking up and hoping somewhere along the line, if we can grow it, it becomes more than hope but expectation, that the players

“If we don’t achieve our goals this season it would be good to get to a point, through good recruitment in the summer, where this is an expectation and a goal next year and every time you don’t get three points it’s a disappointment and people react off that and you have to keep growing and be really strong and expect and demand of each other.

“I’m not the decision maker here, I decide on the team, I don’t decide on the bigger picture of where the club wants to go.”

Mowbray, who has won 70 of his 157 games in charge, is the first Rovers manager to reach the milestone since Mark Hughes (September 2004 - June 2008), while Graeme Souness was at the helm for four-and-a-half years between March 2000 and September 2004.

The 56-year-old hopes when the day comes to leave Rovers, whether it by his own volition or as a consequence of results, he will depart the club in a better state than the one he inherited.

“The main way I manage is by managing people,” he added.

“I have been in football 40 years since leaving school, I think I know football. I bring human values, human qualities to football clubs and I try and set a standard of what’s right and what’s wrong, how to live, how to work, humility, honesty, integrity, those are the qualities I bring.

“Hopefully people follow. I don’t sit here thinking I am a guru who knows every fine detail of the tactics of football, I’ve had 40 years of it so I know enough, but I lean on my staff, lean on good players as every team does, lean on recruitment, I just grow as a human being but I hopefully bring those qualities to not just this football club but every one I’ve managed.

“I try and leave it in a better place than when I arrived, not because it’s a better team with better tactics, but because it’s got good people moving forward, fighting, working hard, with a work ethic and the day I leave Blackburn Rovers hopefully the club will be in a stronger place to when I arrived.”