Rudy Gestede has explained Rovers’ focus on finding the right loans for young talent and why it is a crucial part of their development as the club aims to maintain a clear pathway to the first-team picture.

Jake Garrett, Dilan Markanday, Connor O’Riordan, Jake Batty and Jack Vale have all spent time around the senior squad but are currently away from the club getting further experience under their belts.

A number of Academy prospects have also been given the chance to sample men’s football in the non-league pyramid as part of their learning.

“If it is a young player, you want them to develop,” Gestede told Chris Gill. “It is a long process to develop yourself, some players at 17 could be ready for the first team and some are not.

“You want them to keep developing and you have to get them playing in men’s football. Sometimes it is better for 18 or 19-year-olds to go on loan somewhere than playing in Premier League 2 still against young players.

“We are trying now, as a club, to send our young players on loan whether it’s League One, League Two, the National League, somewhere we know they will be playing week in, week out against adults.

“They can build robustness, physicality and then they come back as men, they can push for a position at the club.”

Rovers also utilised the loan market to bolster John Eustace’s squad in the summer, with Owen Beck and Amario Cozier-Duberry among those who headed to Ewood Park.

Gestede reckons they have the “right platform” to help youngsters from the Premier League improve and thrive in the Championship.

“Stuart Jones is in charge of the loan players,” he continued. “We have constant monitoring, we have weekly information on how many minutes they played or if they didn’t play, why.

“Sometimes you send them on loan and unfortunately, the environment is not the right one. We have to do our homework on the clubs we send players on loan to, it is constant monitoring and the relationships you have to build with clubs.

“Also, we take players on loan because those teams need their players to develop. I think we have the right platform here to bring players on loan from the Premier League and make them better players.

“We have got good development coaching here in place which we personalise for all of our players and the loan players.

“Even if they are not playing enough minutes, we know in the week we will make them work enough to develop themselves.

“We have a good set-up here that you don’t see, everyone is working hard to make sure that our own players and the players we bring in on loan keep developing themselves in every different aspect of the game.”