Tony Mowbray insists that Joe Rothwell will not leave Championship high-flyers Blackburn Rovers amid interest from Scottish giants Rangers, speaking to the Lancs Live.
It is ten years now since Blackburn Rovers were relegated from the Premier League.
In that time, the closest Blackburn have come to returning to the Promised Land was in 2013/14, when a team managed by Gary Bowyer and inspired by the prolific Jordan Rhodes finished eighth in the second tier.
For the most part, it’s been a largely miserable decade.
So you can understand why Rovers supporters are counting down the minutes, nay the seconds, until Monday’s transfer deadline.
For the first time since the dreaded days of Steve Kean, Blackburn look like genuine promotion contenders.
So far, Mowbray’s high-flying side have come through the January window unscathed, a team sitting three points clear in the second place so far retaining the services of Darragh Lenihan, John Buckley, Rothwell and the free-scoring Chile international Ben Brereton-Diaz.
Is Joe Rothwell staying at Blackburn Rovers?
TEAMtalk reported in October that Rangers were ‘confident’ of sealing a deal for Rothwell.
The one-time Manchester United youngster was supposed to sign a pre-contract agreement with the Ibrox outfit and move to Glasgow on a free transfer in the summer.
Things have gone rather quiet since then, however.
Did Rangers’ interest in the slaloming, swaggering central midfielder follow Steven Gerrard out the door? It may be no coincidence that Rothwell hasn’t been linked since Giovanni van Bronckhorst arrived as Gerrard’s replacement.
Either way, Mowbray is confident of retaining a player he likened to Adama Traore and Allan Saint-Maximin in recent months.
“(Rothwell) moving isn’t going to happen,” says Mowbray, playing down interest from Championship promotion-rivals AFC Bournemouth.
“We’ve had bids twice as much as much as what Bournemouth have bid. Some clubs have been in with twice the bid of Bournemouth and he’s still not going anywhere.”
Reports this week claimed that Scott Parker’s out-of-sorts side had failed with a third offer worth £2 million for Rothwell. Taking Mowbray’s comments into account, this means Blackburn have turned down bids of around £4 million in the January window.
Surely no one is going to pay more than that, with Rothwell out of contract in five months’ time.
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