Late in the game at Elland Road, with the Whites ahead 1-0, Begovic was handed his marching orders after leaving his area to challenge Bamford, who tumbled to the ground. Replays seemed to indicate there was no contact, and both players engaged in the incident, according to Ainsworth, were of the same opinion.

The Rangers manager remarked, “Doesn’t touch him.”

“Both players have confirmed that there was no contact, according to me. Patrick is a lovely kid; he jumped out of the referee’s way thinking he had captured him. We’ll have to go to the decision-makers at QPR to see whether we can appeal that, but perhaps we can have one reversed. Asmir has been fantastic for me this season, so I feel terrible for him.

Although Ainsworth’s team was outplayed in the opening period, they fought back in the second period with long balls pumped into the area, and they had a chance to tie the score when a ball fell for Lyndon Dykes near the penalty spot. Illan Meslier of Leeds made a crucial save when the Scotland striker hooked in the direction of goal.

“I’m an eternal optimist,” said Ainsworth.

“I thought we had a few chances later on, if we could have got the crosses better or the final touch. A hell of a lot of money on the pitch for Leeds, big club, full house on a Wednesday night. We knew we would have to work really hard. I was disappointed that on the ball we weren’t as good as previous games. We’ve been playing some great stuff, we didn’t really get hold of the ball.

“Asmir made one great save first half, I don’t think he was troubled too much in the second half. It was one sloppy moment that cost us early on with that goal. Daniel has said at the end it’s always super tough against your teams and I’ve got to take those compliments and pass them onto the boys. Even with 10 men we were going to try and level. Elland Road is a tough place to come.

“We’ve had a couple of collapses in our time, when two or three have gone in in a short space of time. They gave everything. I asked them for a bit more output. I wanted more of the committed workrate. That’s the final frontier. We gave that tonight but what we lost was the quality on the ball. I think we’ll finish much higher than people think we will.”