Rovers are delighted to announce that Tony Mowbray has committed his long-term future to the club.

Following positive and productive talks with the club’s Owners in India last month, Mowbray has today signed a new two-year deal, with the option of a further 12 months.

The head coach, who arrived at Ewood Park in February, has his sights firmly set on an immediate return to the Championship and is excited by the challenge ahead.

“I enjoyed the trip to India and I'm just looking forward to the challenge of it now,” said the 53-year-old.

“I think it's a fantastic football club, with a fantastic infrastructure. The job is to bounce back straight away and I needed some reassurances that we wouldn't be selling all of our players and that we had some budget to try and strengthen the team if we could, having lost 12 players through either loans going back or people out of contract.

“I'm looking forward to the opportunity of trying to build a team that the fans can be proud of and enjoy and hopefully we can win plenty of games. The only target is to try and bounce back at the first opportunity.”

Mowbray’s extended Ewood stay means that he can now put a plan in place to build for the future, both in terms of the playing staff and structures within the club.

“I think every football manager goes into a club, I know I do, as if I'm going to be there a long, long time and at Blackburn Rovers I do think that we need to build it,” he added.

“There has to be some restructuring internally, because we’re now in League One, but ultimately the aim is to build the departments up as I like them to work, to focus on the recruitment of players that can push the club to where we want to be, to develop young players from the Academy system that can hopefully help be part of that team as we move forward, to give the team an identity and a philosophy – a way of playing – that people want to come and be a part of.

“It takes a bit of time to build all that, but you have to start the process somewhere and I’m looking forward to try and make Blackburn Rovers a team that people talk about for playing good football, scoring goals, winning games and the supporters want to come and support the team because of what's happening on the grass.”

Whilst the short-term target is to bounce straight back into the second tier, which Mowbray knows won’t be easy, he insists the ultimate aim is to build a squad capable of challenging for promotion to the Premier League.

“I think it's important to state from the outset that League One is a difficult league,” he added. “League One is a hard, attritional, physical league, but our aim has to be to win promotion in season one.

“I know how difficult that's going to be, because there's some pretty big teams still in League One – the likes of Charlton, Portsmouth, Wigan, Bradford etc – so there's going to be plenty of competition and we need to make sure we’re at our best in every game, but the bigger goal isn't League One.

“The bigger goal is to push on past the Championship if we can. We have to first and foremost re-establish ourselves back in the Championship if we can get the job done next season and then to aim for the Premier League.

“It seems a long way away at the moment, but if we can achieve our first target, which is what we have to concentrate and focus on, and I a bit uncomfortable talking about future goals, because the only goal at the moment is to try and build a successful team in this league and then we'll deal with the one above, but ultimately the longer-term goals are to build a strong team for the Championship that can compete to get out of that division.”