Rovers must be “professional” against Walsall in the opening round of the Carabao Cup this evening, says Jon Dahl Tomasson.

Tomasson’s side overcame Hartlepool at this stage last season following a 4-0 victory at Ewood Park, but the boss insists they cannot afford to take the game lightly.

The Rovers is keen to keep building momentum following Saturday’s 2-1 victory against West Brom in the league.

“It is a team who want to have a go and give everything to win,” he said. “We need to keep doing the right things so we can get a good result.

“You can lose every game if you don’t do the right things, so we need to be extremely professional and have in mind what they are good at and how we can lose the game.

“But we also need to think about how we are playing, how we want to play football and build on that.

“For me, it is an extremely important cup game. You shouldn’t forget all the tradition and the joy we had last season.

“We want to have a good performance, I think it goes hand-in-hand with the league form.”

Swedish goalkeeper Leopold Wahlstedt was pictured at Ewood Park at the weekend ahead of a proposed move from Odds BK.

Tomasson is keen to add competition to his goalkeeping ranks following Thomas Kaminski’s move to Premier League newcomers Luton Town but says a deal for Wahlstedt has not yet been finalised.

“Thomas went away and we need competition for Pears,” the manager explained.

“He did really well against West Brom and when one player goes out of the building, we need a new one in for competition. At the minute, I can’t give anything official.”

When asked about competition in the squad, he added: “People need to push each other. At the moment, we only have three new signings and two of those have not really been playing.

“Arnor is injured. I really feel sorry for the boy because he wants to show what he can. Niall, he is coming from behind.”

Tomasson was pleased to be back at Ewood Park in front of a crowd of nearly 17,000 against the Baggies and hopes his side can continue to make it a “fortress” in the coming weeks and months.

“It was an exceptional performance,” said the Rovers boss. “The way we dealt with West Brom – one of the biggest teams in the league - and we have a very young side.

“I was really impressed with how they dealt with it at the end. We had the upper hand and should have scored more goals.

“But it was a great day at the office and good to be back at our Ewood fortress. I think the fans really enjoyed the game as well.”