Nigel Pearson lamented a "missed opportunity" for his Leicester City side to ease their relegation troubles after Saturday's 1-0 Premier League defeat to Stoke City at the King Power Stadium.
Victory over Mark Hughes' men would have seen Leicester escape the relegation zone due to results elsewhere, but Bojan Krkic's expert second-half finish denied them.
Pearson acknowledged that Bojan's moment of quality was the difference in a tight game, but he was still taking positives from the fact they remain within touching distance of safety.
"The one bit of real quality decided the game. Unfortunately for us, when we went a goal behind, we didn't really create too many dangerous situations," Pearson said.
"That's probably the most disappointing thing for us because our results recently have been better and our performances have been pretty good, but we didn't put them under enough pressure towards the end of the game.
"Whether that is because we didn't play well enough or they defended well I don't know. It's probably a mixture of both, and that's the disappointing thing.
"Given results elsewhere, it probably is a missed opportunity. But having said that, the flip-side of that is that we've not lost too much ground either."
Despite the narrow loss, Pearson believes his side acquitted themselves well.
"It's a disappointing day, but it's something that we can't allow ourselves to get too down about," he added. "Stoke are a side with a lot of Premier League know-how. It was always going to be a tight game.
"I thought in the first half we did pretty well, even though they started well possession-wise. I always thought we looked pretty dangerous.
"We just didn't really get the momentum in the second half. It's a bit disappointing, but we'll move on."
