EWOOD Park may have been plunged into darkness yesterday but there was a steely determination in Gary Bowyer not to allow the lights to go out on his side’s season.

A power cut in the town meant Blackburn Rovers were forced to shut its offices and shop but it did not prevent Bowyer from conducting his planned training session out on the pitch.

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With the surfaces at Brockhall frozen solid Rovers decamped to Ewood to ramp up their preparations for tomorrow’s trip to Watford.

And, after the session came to a close, and with the electricity back on, Bowyer sat down in his office at the ground to talk through his thoughts on the crucial Vicarage Road clash.

Victory for Rovers would not only see them close the gap on sixth-placed Watford to five points, it would also represent the perfect start to their busiest month of the campaign.

And, with six further games to follow before February is out, Bowyer admits he is going to need every member of his near fully-fit squad.

“It presents an opportunity to close the gap on Watford but there’s a hell of a lot more football to play after this game as well,” said the Rovers boss.

“Hopefully things will go well for us on Saturday but even then we can’t rest on our laurels, we have to keep going for the rest of the season.

“I think we showed when beating Fulham on Saturday that we are capable of scoring goals and winning football matches and that’s what we’ve got to try and do until the end of the season.

“That’s that’s the message the players have had and everybody is working hard to achieve it.”

Top-scorer Rudy Gestede will return tomorrow after missing the 2-1 home victory over Fulham.

Josh King, who was also absent against the Cottagers, could also come into contention after training yesterday but David Dunn remains sidelined.

“Fortunately for us I think there’s only David Dunn who is going to be absent for this weekend,” said Bowyer, whose first-team coach Craig Short, along with Dunn, were part of the last Rovers team to win at Watford, back in February 2001.

“There are a lot of games, we are going to need everybody, and we’ll see where we are at the end of this month.”

Last weekend Lee Williamson, a former Hornets midfielder, was left out of Rovers’ matchday squad completely given the options they had available.

And Bowyer said: “It’s competition and to their credit the lads have embraced it.

“We’ve just spoken about seven games in three weeks. It’s a squad game, nobody ever gets promoted with just 11 players.

“We understand that, the lads understand that and everybody wants to achieve the same goal.”

Bar from young centre back Jack O’Connell, who joined Championship rivals Brentford, Rovers did not lose any players they wanted to retain before the transfer window closed on Monday.

And Bowyer yesterday re-emphasised the fact that he did not want O’Connell to leave.

He said: “There was an interest from Brentford, they put a bid in, we didn’t want him to go, and we said that to him and his representatives, but he wanted to go, so that’s why he went.”