Tony Mowbray felt the game got away from Rovers at Swansea City, just as it had in their previous away defeat at Bristol City.

Rovers were beaten 3-1 at the Liberty Stadium, a second loss on the road this season, having led through a Charlie Mulgrew penalty.

Mowbray admitted he considered moving to a three man for the second half in which the Swans ran in three unanswered goals.

Instead, he opted to keep the same XI from the team which had beaten Leeds, though did moves his wide players on to the opposite flank.

The boss said: “I understand when you make changes people can be critical. I said to the team that maybe I should have made changes at half time and pushed the reset button.

“I thought about changing to three at the back at half time and giving us a fresh focus but if I had changed everything and we lost 3-1 then you question yourself as well.

“Maybe I should have been braver and made the changes I could smell at half time.

“We had worked on Armstrong playing wide right rather than wide left.

“Matty Grimes isn’t a left back but he has been playing there because they play with their full backs narrow and go in to midfield like Pep Guardiola does at Manchester City.

“We thought that Armstrong could expose a player better known for his creativity than his full back play and Armstrong could have ran past him.

“That’s what we’d worked on but they started with (Martin) Olsson there and so we brought Armstrong to the right.

“The players buy in to what we do and they understand the changes we make.

“I moved to three midfielders when we took Danny (Graham) off because I thought we were getting overran in midfield.

“The game ran away from us, like Bristol City, but we could have been 3-0 up at half time there.

“It was a very similar scenario here, I thought we were good for long spells but I felt the game ran away from us.”

Defeat leaves Rovers seventh in the table with 21 points from 14 matches.

And Mowbray added: “I thought for long spells of the game we were good.

“It started to get a little bit stretched towards the end of the first half and second half the game became more end to end which suited them more than us.

“The first goal is out of nothing, a shot from 25 yards which hits the post and goes in off the goalie’s back. The second they got in between the lines and slid a nice ball through.

“Then the fine margins of the game. The ‘keeper made a miraculous save from Bradley, he said he was about to spin off and celebrate because he thought it was in, and within half a minute they go up the pitch and score a third and the game is over.

“I thought we played well for long spells, but it didn’t suit us for the game to get stretched.

“A defeat along the way is part and parcel of the game and we’ve always responded well in the past so we’ll see how we go on Saturday.”

On the second goal, the boss added: “The boy drives in off the left-hand side, Charlie (Mulgrew) came out to him and he slips it down the side of him and the boy on the other wing comes inside Amari’i (Bell), I think he thought he was going on the outside and he slipped in on the inside and puts it in the corner.

“It was good play from them, I don’t think we can be too critical of the team.

“We defended well for long, long spells, but that two minute spell just undid us. That’s football.

“You have to admit they have good players and can hurt you on any given moment and I think we will find that at West Brom on Saturday.

“I thought the team worked hard for long spells, we looked in control for long spells, but they had players with pace and dribbling speed.

“We had our opportunities to come away with a draw, but that’s the frustration. We had some decent chances but let’s say well done to Swansea on their victory and we’ll move on to Saturday.”