With Tuesday’s 2-1 loss at QPR, which keeps his team in the top five despite having played more than the pursuing pack, John Eustace was clearly as unhappy as he has been since taking over as Blackburn’s manager, nearly a year into his tenure.

The club that won six straight games prior to Christmas has now won two of their last 11 Championship games, which has infuriated the head coach, who is known for publicly supporting his players.

“It was really disappointing to lose the way we did with another soft goal,” Eustace said on BBC Radio Lancashire.

“We’ve got to put our bodies on the line to keep the ball out of the net.”

This was the 12th league loss for Rovers. A total of 14 losses have been incurred by the four clubs in the table above them. West Bromwich Albion, who are in a lower division, have drew more than twice as many games as Rovers while losing six.

The two sides meet next week with Tony Mowbray and Adam Armstrong up against their former club.

The lack of draws has been key of late. In their past two away games, Blackburn have responded to being a goal down by scoring the next one, but have conceded again at pretty much the same time in both – with 13 or 14 minutes to go.

A point at Bristol City and QPR would have been more than acceptable on the face of it, having won the home games against both earlier in the season.

It’s also the manner of goals going which has been cause for concern. In the past five games (W1 L4), you could argue at least four, if not more, of the goals were soft. Deflections you can’t do a lot about, but others have been a bit of a head scratcher.

Eustace knows things have to improve at both ends to stand a chance of securing one of those play-off spots.

“We’ve got to defend the box better and be more clinical in the final third because we still had two or three great chances,” Eustace said.

“We need to improve if we’ve got any aspirations of trying to get into the top six. We need to be better than we have been.”

Eustace has emphasised the necessity of bringing in new players during the January transfer window to support his current roster since well before the year ended. His team now has six players, three of whom were added on deadline day.

The fan base’s response has been conflicting. The recruitment process and its operation have been questioned by some, while others believe it is an improvement over former winter windows when prominent human blunders cost them important players.

It remains to be seen how many of them regularly affect the starting lineup between now and May.

Emmanuel Dennis is one that has garnered attention and is somewhat expensive. However, it has been ten months since he last played domestic football.

Cauley Woodrow’s only Championship start this season was in early November. Dion Sanderson and Adam Forshaw are in a similar boat.

Yuri Ribeiro has been in and out of Braga’s side and Augustus Kargbo, who made his debut at Loftus Road, has played 90 minutes once in Serie B since the start of September.

Undoubtedly one of Eustace’s biggest strengths is getting the best out of the players at his disposal.

With Hayden Carter, Harry Pickering, Sondre Tronstad, Yuki Ohashi, Arnor Sigurdsson, and Harry Leonard still on the absentee list, his players adore working with him, so more choices would be appreciated.

For the head coach, the 25-man roster that will be announced this week presents an intriguing and sensitive dilemma.

Given that Rovers now have 26 seniors on their roster, someone will need to miss the rest of the season.

Forty-five points are still available. It’s more than many could have ever imagined to be in fifth place now. It is everything up for grabs.

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