2 players who could follow Callum Brittain out of Blackburn Rovers | OneFootball

A look at two more players who could leave Blackburn Rovers after the departure of Callum Brittain this summer.

Blackburn Rovers missed out on a top six finish and the play-off places on the final day of last season, but the Lancastrians are once again rebuilding this summer to try and go a couple of steps further.

Valerian Ismael’s start to life in charge at Ewood Park was a tough one, but the form picked up before the end of the campaign, and he now has the chance to put the structures in place for his fairly direct and extreme style of football to work most effectively.

A surprising move, therefore, would be that Callum Brittain, someone who thrived under Ismael for Barnsley as they reached the play-offs in the Championship back in the 2020/21 campaign, is seemingly heading for the exit door with Middlesbrough and Derby County interested and Ismael confirming that he refused to play in their pre-season friendly against Accrington Stanley at the weekend.

Brittain is likely a player that Blackburn don’t really want to sell, especially due to his performances under Ismael previously, but he also may not be the last first-team departure this summer.

With that in mind, Football League World has looked at two other players who could also follow Brittain out the door at Blackburn during this summer’s transfer window.

Lewis Travis

Club captain Lewis Travis began to rediscover his form in a Blackburn shirt towards the end of the 2024/25 season, but it may well be the case that that was just a ‘make-do’ situation for Ismael.

The 27-year-old Whiston-born Blackburn academy graduate, who began his youth career with Liverpool, is an out-and-out defensive midfielder, and someone who would appear ideally suited to sitting in front of the back four in a progressive, possession-dominant style of football.

That is not the way in which Ismael has or will play next season, with a rigid 3-4-3 system that requires a lot of energy from all-action central midfielders, more akin to that of Alex Mowatt at Barnsley or West Bromwich Albion when Ismael was there.

The lack of mobility and ability to successfully adapt to a more box-to-box role could see Travis often sidelined next season, especially with the addition of Sidnei Tavares from Moreirense this summer.

Travis has also already left Blackburn before, joining Ipswich Town on loan in the winter transfer window of 2024 and making nine appearances for the Tractor Boys as they gained automatic promotion to the Premier League, plus plenty of rival Championship clubs have shown some interest already this summer.

Yuki Ohashi

This one would certainly be a departure that not many Blackburn supporters will be very happy about, and it would certainly be something of a surprise for the club to sanction it.

However, after his poor start, it does now appear that Blackburn are all in on Ismael, at least the club’s hierarchy are, and, despite a varied approach in recruitment in recent seasons, that will require them to focus on signing to Ismael’s style.

Despite the fact that Japan international Yuki Ohashi enjoyed a reasonably impressive start to life in England with nine goals in 36 appearances in the Championship last season, finishing as the club’s top scorer, he again doesn’t appear to naturally fit into an Ismael style of football.

The striker in an Ismael side is one that has to be dynamic and difficult to defend against in terms of occupation of defenders and overall physicality, whilst Ohashi is a striker that provides more of an instinctive goal threat in and around the 18-yard box.

Intriguingly enough, though, Ohashi actually finished the season in excellent form with four goals and three assists in his final 11 appearances of the campaign – and was a key man in their late season dash towards the top six.

That would perhaps suggest that Ohashi is someone who Ismael will want to keep in order to thrive but, it remains the case that over the course of 46 matches, he isn’t necessarily the profile of player that you would automatically presume fits the Ismael style and, at the age of 28 off the back of a decent first season in England, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see other clubs interested and Blackburn willing to cash in.