Albion found the perfect combination against Barnet on Tuesday, scoring goals in abundance at one end and keeping the opposition out at the other.

It is a recipe Bristol Rovers boss Paul Trollope is keen for his team to rediscover following their losing start to the season.

They scored twice at the Memorial Stadium last Saturday but leaked three goals against Carlisle.

At weakened Watford on Tuesday they failed to hit the target and were knocked out of the Carling Cup when Will Hoskins scored two minutes from time.

Following promotion via the play-offs, Rovers won only one of their last 15 matches last season to finish 16th in League One.

You have to go back to early February for the last time they won by more than one goal and kept a clean sheet.

Trollope said: “Football is about winning and losing, not playing well, and we have to improve.

“It’s about keeping clean sheets and scoring goals and that is something we need to get back to doing quickly.”

In spite of their tardy start, Trollope, who spent a total of £220,000 on new signings Darryl Duffy and Jeff Hughes, is not panicking just yet.

“There are some big teams and a lot of spending power in this division but we feel we have added in the right areas and the quality of the group is improving all the time,”

he said.

“If we add further, hopefully that will mean further improvement.

There’s no magic wand to produce six or seven signings to make us into a team that will get automatic promotion but promotion is still the aim.

“We weren’t screaming and shouting about things when we got out of League Two but, if we continue to make progress, tweak the squad where we need to along the way and use the loan market if we need to, we are confident we can challenge and be in the top half of League One.”

Trollope is aiming to bolster his squad with another striker before the transfer window closes at the end of the month.

That could have implications for former Coventry City front man Wayne Andrews, who recently spent a fortnight at Lilleshall trying to regain fitness after suffering knee ligament damage while on loan last season.

Lennie Lawrence, Rovers’ Brighton-born director of football, said: “Wayne is unfortunately still some way off being fully fit.

“It is not a medical thing for him – the problem is the rehabilitation work that he has missed and he has to get himself up to speed.

“We still feel the same about him when he is ready to play but any deal would depend on what situation we were in when that time comes around.

“We would have to assess what gaps we needed to fill at that time.

It would be September at the earliest before anything might occur on that front.”

Rovers’ away form kept them up last season. They only lost nine times in 23 outings, a better record than seventh-placed Albion, but won just five times at home.

Trollope hopes improvement work on the shocking Memorial Stadium pitch will pay dividends.

He said: “The ground has been skimmed and is flatter than it’s been in recent years and the grass is thicker.

“It’s had a lot of experts working on it, which has cost a lot of money, and it will thicken up further over the weeks ahead.

“A good surface, not only for the early months of the season but in March and April, would be of huge benefit to us in terms of our form and our results at home.”