TONY Mowbray felt Rovers’ best chance of winning at Wolves was to keep things and tight and look to nick a winning goal, just as they did at Nottingham Forest eight days earlier.

Rovers failed to score for a third time in their last six games as they registered just two shots on target despite dominating for long spells at Molineux.

That point, and a defeat for Birmingham on Sunday, leaves Rovers two points from safety going in to their final two games.

Head coach Mowbray has opted for a three at the back system in Rovers’ last three games, and felt the game plan gave his side the best chance of recording a second successive away win.

Mowbray sent on Danny Graham, Lucas Joao and Marvin Emnes as Rovers pressed for a winner in the second half, but failed to find that elusive goal.

“For most of my career I have played open and expansive football and been criticised for being too open and expansive at times,” Mowbray told the Lancashire Telegraph.

“I just feel that in the situation we are we need to keep it really tight but we need to score some goals.

“We won at Forest by keeping it tight and nicking a goal and we thought going to Molineux and keep it tight, nick a goal, but we just didn’t find it.

“In the last 20 minutes we had virtually every striker at the club on the field but that’s football, it didn’t quite happen for us, but we’re having a go and no-one can criticise the work ethic of the team on the pitch.”

Rovers had just five shots against Wolves, two of those being on target, the first of which didn’t arrive until the 67th minute when Elliott Bennett saw a free-kick saved. However, Rovers managed just one effort on target at the City Ground, that being Tommie Hoban’s 77th minute header which handed them a 1-0 win.

And when asked if a lack of shots on target at Molineux concerned him, Mowbray added: “Not really – it only took one shot on target to win at Nottingham Forest.

“You can have 10 shots on target and lose 2-0.

“I thought we had more of a control of the game than we have had for a week or two and that’s the frustration.

“No football team has 20 shots every game, you can play against teams who play with a back six and two players in front and it can be very difficult to break through.

“Wolves struggled against the way that we set up and football is risk and reward.  We could have opened the game up and lost 5-4, but we didn’t want to play like that, we wanted to make it difficult for them, frustrate them, see if their crowd turned against them and see if we could nick a goal as we did at Nottingham Forest.

“For an hour or so I didn’t think they were going to get a goal, but sometimes you have to take that gamble to try and get the goal, but it didn’t quite happen for us.

“It was frustrating because I didn’t feel they had a threat until the last 10 minutes or so but it’s a point when it should have been three and that’s what is frustrating for us.

“That’s how we approached the game, yet we fell a little bit short.”

Ryan Nyambe operated at right wing-back for Rovers and showed real energy in what was a whole hearted display in a more advanced role.

However, he was among a number of players whose final ball was let down as Rovers struggled to make the most of the opportunities they fashioned.

But Mowbray wasn’t critical of the 19-year-old who was starting a 13th consecutive game under him.

He added: “Ryan is a young boy, he’s only out of the youth team last year.

“He has fabulous attributes and assets physically but he’s got a lot of work to do in terms of his distribution and that will come with experience and playing games.

“Saturday, maybe a different player in those positions may have picked out a better pass, but let’s not criticise Ryan Nyambe because I thought he was fantastic.

“His desire and his energy and ability to keep going for the full 90 minutes was evident for everyone to see.”