BLACKBURN Rovers midfielder Chris Taylor admits the play-offs are looking unlikely after the ‘massive blow’ of losing to  Brentford.

But Taylor is adamant Rovers will not give up on the top six until it is mathematically impossible.

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Gary Bowyer’s side are now 11 points behind sixth-placed Brentford with eight games of the season to play after losing Tuesday’s crunch Ewood Park crunch encounter.

The 3-2 defeat to the Bees ended Rovers’ run of three straight victories in the Championship.

But they will attempt to bounce back at home to Brighton & Hove Albion tomorrow and Taylor believes a similar winning run will give them an outside chance of gatecrashing the play-offs.

“You have to give it everything while it’s mathematically still possible,” said the 28-year-old, who put Rovers back in front on Tuesday with his first league goal for the club.

“You’ve still got to go for it but if we are being realistic it’s looking a little unlikely now. Tuesday was a massive blow.

“But if we can win three out of the next four games again you never know how far off we’ll be.

“We’ve just got to look after ourselves and see what else happens.

“You can’t be worrying how Brentford are doing, or how Ipswich are doing, we’ve just got to take care of ourselves, keep winning and hope that gap closes.”

Rovers were building up a head of steam going into the Brentford clash after beating Sheffield Wednesday, Bolton Wanderers and Charlton Athletic – and holding Liverpool to an FA Cup quarter-final draw at Anfield.

“We knew Tuesday was a massive game because we knew that if we’d beaten them we’d be five points behind them – that’s no secret,” said Taylor, who has scored three times in Rovers’ thrilling run to the last eight of the FA Cup.

“We went ahead once, went ahead twice, and it’s just disappointing that for the work we put in, we didn’t take anything from the game.

“And I think a lot of it was down to ourselves, rather than them.

“If Brentford had opened us up and scored some quality goals then sometimes you’ve got to hold your hands up.

“But that wasn’t the case on Tuesday, it was a lot more down to ourselves and that’s something that hasn’t been happening the last few weeks.

“We’ve been brilliant defensively and going forwards and we’ve picked up a lot of wins.

“Hopefully we’ll cut that out on Saturday.”

Rovers have also not been helped by injuries with eight players sidelined against Brentford.

And with tomorrow’s match with Brighton their 13th in seven weeks, but their last for a fortnight because of the international break, Taylor said: “The batteries do need recharging.

“It’s been a long couple of weeks for the lads and the gaffer can’t get as much as he probably wants from us on the training field because there are lads fatigued and lads injured. You can’t risk it.

“But if we’d won Tuesday and won Saturday then there would have been a lot of momentum so maybe we wouldn’t have wanted the break.

“But, yes, I think it has come at a good time for us.”