Mick McCarthy felt Sam Gallagher’s opening goal was offside – but was disappointed with how his side capitulated in the 5-1 defeat at Ewood Park.

Gallagher put Rovers ahead in the 24th minute and Rovers added two more before the break through a Ben Brereton double, before Tyrhys Dolan and Brereton made it a rout in the second half by getting on the scoresheet.

The Bluebirds had started the game brightly, Aden Flint denied by a Thomas Kaminski save before Ryan Nyambe cleared Sean Morrison’s follow-up off the line from Cardiff’s first long throw.

However, Rovers didn’t look back from the moment Gallagher ran on to a John Buckley pass to score and set them on their way to three points.

A disappointed McCarthy said: "We started the game well for the first 20-25 minutes until they scored. The goal was offside but that does happen in the game and what we can't do is capitulate like we did.

"You've got to stick in it and make sure you don't concede again, we didn't, and then the third goal at half-time the game has almost ran away with us.

"I changed it at half-time, I had to do something, I thought we got a response. Unfortunately when we do that we're all going gung-ho and leaving ourselves wide open, we got caught."

Cardiff have now lost four of their last five matches after collecting eight points from their opening four matches.

Their task doesn’t get any easier with the visit of West Bromwich Albion on Tuesday, and McCarthy admits he shares the concern of supporters after the recent run of results.

He added: "It's not easy to put my finger on that because we pretty much have the nucleus of the team that we had last year.

"Maybe teams have worked us out a bit. They've changed, played against us, we've analysed everything and will continue to do so.

"I haven't got an answer for you now, that's for sure.

"I was concerned when we lost the first one. Then we came back and won (against Nottingham Forest) but I'm even more concerned now, by how we are playing and how we get back on track.

"That's all we can try and do on Tuesday (against West Brom) because it's coming thick and fast."