Billy Barr was ‘at a loss’ to explain his side’s display, one he branded their worst of the season, as they fell to a 3-0 home defeat to Manchester City.

The visitors arrived at Leyland bottom of the table but were too slick for Rovers as they ran in three unanswered second half goals.

Rovers rarely threatened, with Isaac Whitehall passing up a rare sight of goal when 1-0 down, but two late goals from substitute Jayden Braaf added to a Fisayo Dele-Bashiru strike 11 minutes in to the second half to give City the points.

“Terrible. I’m at a loss to explain the whole performance,” Barr said, summing up the 90 minutes.

“Our pre-match was built around retention of the ball.

“That was by far the worst we’ve been this season, in both halves. I didn’t think we could be any worse than we were in the first half in the second, but in my opinion, I thought we were.

“We mustered very little in the game.

“Out of possession first half I thought we kept a good shape, not many goalscoring opportunities against us. The main problem was retention of the ball.

“We get to a certain point and then we rush, we make bad decisions and gave the ball back to a team who although bottom of the league, they’re a good team.

“Possession wise, they’re the best team in our league, the stats say, they retain the ball the longest. They hadn’t been firing in front of goal, but we let them.”

Rovers weren’t given much of the ball to use, as a composed City side dominated possession, and the chances, with Joe Hilton making several smart saves to keep his side in the game.

“That’s when you have to keep it more. I thought we went back to Joe Hilton far too often, particularly second half,” a disappointed Barr added.

“From advanced positions we were losing 70 yards in two passes and lost our movement, belief to make passes to get back up the pitch.

“We have some very good players. The gaffer keeps going on about the potential of the young lads but we weren’t as good as we have been.

“We’re going to have to take it on the chin and come back from that because we can’t be as bad as that again.”

With Jack Vale back from international duty with Wales Under-21s to lead the line, and Joe Rankin-Costello, Dan Butterworth and Harry Chapman tucked in behind him, there was no shortage of creative talent in the Rovers side.

But they failed to build up any momentum by giving the ball away too cheaply.

“We had a couple of chances first half, but I can’t remember anything second half,” Barr added.

“But if you don’t keep the ball well enough then you won’t get that high up the pitch anyway.”

Rovers remain without several regular players because of injury, with captain Joe Grayson out for the season because of surgery on a hamstring injury, while fellow defenders Charley Doyle and Louis Annesley are still around three weeks away from a potential return.

Midfielder Brad Lyons will return to training this week, but Barr expects to be working with a similar group for Monday night’s Premier League International Cup game with Benfica at Leyland (7pm).

“Definitely, technically very good as you would expect, and a little bit older which is another challenge.

“I’ll see what team we put out but hopefully the players will have had a look at themselves, we’ll have had some honest chats and be a totally different proposition.”