Tony Mowbray didn’t feel there was a gulf in class between his side and Leeds United – but was once again left to reflect on missed chances as Rovers fell to a third loss in the space of a week.

Patrick Bamford and Kalvin Phillips goals had the league leaders in front at the break, before an Adam Armstrong free kick, his 14th goal of the season, hauled Rovers back in to the game.

But a Mateusz Klich strike moments later put the game beyond Mowbray’s men to are now 11th in the table.

Rovers are now battling to stop their season petering out, still four points shy eclipsing last season’s tally of 60.

Mowbray said: “Nobody wanted the last three games to peter out. The team are trying hard enough, we’ve not taken some chances, I won’t lose faith that we’ve got some good players and some potential.

“Are we good enough to be at the top end of the table? The table won’t lie after 46 games.

“We’re frustrated, disappointed, we’ve lost three games on the bounce in a week and it’s not we wanted.

“We’ll try and win the next five, if we keep missing our chances it’s unlikely we will, but if we start taking them then we’ll give ourselves a better chance.”

Mowbray is targeting wins over Cardiff, Millwall and West Brom in their next three in a bid to give them hope going in to their last two, but admits: “If we don’t then we’ll probably finish in the middle of the league and that will be frustrating for everyone of course.

“We don’t want to be a mid-table team, we came out of League One, we’ve consolidated, finished 16th last season and we want to push on, we want to finish in the top 10, we want to show that we can compete to be in the top six.

“We have to get to the point where we have a belief that anything below the top six or top two becomes a disappointing season.

“Maybe we’re not there with the team we’ve got, maybe the missed chances and the lack of clean sheets over the last week or two have shown that things aren’t quite right.

“If we’re a team still trying to progress, still building the club, that’s where we are. But we’re trying our very best to win the next five games.

“To win five games in a row in this league is really hard, but we’ve gone pretty close this season and we’ll see how this one finishes.”

Rovers had excellent chances at 1-0 down to haul themselves level, Sam Gallagher missing a one-on-one opportunity moments before Lewis Holtby hit the post.

“I think we made a game of it, first half particularly, we missed a one-on-one, we hit the post, we had a goal disallowed,” Mowbray added.

“Yet they scored at strange times, just as we were getting back in to the game they scored again. Soft goals.

“Travis got caught for the first one in a really bad position, you’d have to say a brilliant free kick for the second, a brilliant goal from Arma from his free kick, and then their third goal was a killer for us.

“At 2-1 with however long to go, I think it would have been a really exciting finish to the game.

“They came with an attitude and a belief that they’re going to win football matches and have some very good players.

“Was the gap massive? I don’t think so, I think we could have got something from today but we weren’t really at our maximum, we did miss some chances and goals change games. Sam should have scored, we hit the inside the of the post and it bounced out, could easily have gone.

“It wasn’t enough to beat Leeds United but frustrating for us that we did miss some chances again like we’ve been repeatedly saying over the last few games now.”

Mowbray saw his side pass up excellent chances in the defeats at Barnsley and Wigan, and admits other than Armstrong, who scored his 14th of the season, it has been tough going for Rovers’ other forwards this campaign.

“I think with the players we’ve got, we can create chances. But whichever striker we’ve put on the pitch, other than Armstrong at the moment, and he missed a chunk of the training coming back after lockdown and wasn’t ready to start the games in our opinion, but he’s scored a couple of goals and looking a bit sharper,” he added.

“Dominic missed some chances against Barnsley, Sam missed some chances today, maybe they fact they haven’t been on the training ground every day for the last three months building their confidence by hitting the back of the net.

“When those chances go in they’re different football matches, not just today but the other two.

“It’s been a tough three games for us in this week. We haven’t been outplayed or beaten easily, just missed some chances at crucial times. You have to score goals, we missed some opportunities over all three games to give ourselves a chance of winning them.”