Tom Anderson says Rovers’ first-half performance at Oxford United gave them a mountain to climb on Tuesday night.
Goals from Matty Taylor and Olamide Shodipo secured the win for the U’s, and the skipper felt they gave themselves too much to do.
He said: “It was a tough night for us, we were nowhere near good enough in the first-half and we gave ourselves a mountain to climb.
“We were 1-0 down and we knew we had to get to the break just one goal behind, but to concede two more killed the game off.
“There were a few words said at half-time and we deserved that, we got a bit of a reaction second-half without getting a goal.”
With more tough games coming up, Anderson says Rovers need to make it harder for teams to break them down.
He added: “We got a clean sheet on Saturday and probably should have had one against Crewe, but we were too easy to break down here.
“We know we’re better than that but we have to put it to bed and get ourselves focused on the next game.
“We have to get our decision making right and know when to try certain things, if that’s not right then we’ll get punished.”