Sam Allardyce admitted his West Ham United side had simply not been clinical enough in Tuesday's 1-1 npower Championship draw at Bristol City.
The Hammers went ahead through James Tomkins' header after dominating the opening 25 minutes at Ashton Gate, only for Robert Green to allow Cole Skuse's speculative long-range strike to slip past him less than five minutes later.
West Ham re-established their superiority after the break, only for Henri Lansbury, Winston Reid and substitute John Carew to pass up a succession of chances to secure a vital victory for their side.
Lansbury clipped the bar with an angled drive before Reid was unable to stab the ball past Dean Gerken. Then, late on, Carew flashed a header over before seeing his low shot repelled by the goalkeeper.
As it is, a draw leaves Big Sam's men five points adrift of second-place Southampton with just two games to play and the manager wondering what might have been if his players had taken their opportunities to put the game to bed.
"The amount of chances we've had is the hardest thing to take," the manager told West Ham TV. "On dominance of play, on power of play and on chances created it should have been a victory for us. Because we've missed those chances, we've not capitalised on a very dominant and powerful performance by the players.
"It's very disappointing to not stay in the race as close as we wanted to. It's not mathematically over but it's going to be very difficult now. We can only really look towards Middlesbrough beating Southampton on Saturday and us beating Leicester on Monday to take it to the last game of the season.
"Even then, a victory would be what we needed and then a bit of a miracle from Coventry playing away at Southampton. It's going to be very, very difficult now.
"It's very disappointing that we didn't get the victory we deserved. We had no margin for error but because we haven't taken the chances we created we ended up with a disappointing draw from a very good performance with the vast majority of the play in the opposition penalty box.
"Our free-scoring spirit has let us down and those chances that were created were not converted so it's 1-1, it's disappointing and we move on."
Bristol City had hardly had a kick before Skuse let fly with a dipping effort that eluded Green and bounced high into the net.
The equaliser gave the Robins and their fans renewed energy and belief, but Big Sam insisted that his team should still have had more than enough quality to defeat Derek McInnes' relegation-threatened battlers.
"Goals change games, but it didn't change it that much. It lifted them and it lifted the crowd of course, but it didn't give them any more impetus in terms of the chances they created. It gave them something to hang on and fight for.
"We were in complete control of the game from start to finish and, even though they had a little spell after they scored, we took complete control again in the second half.
"We can't really have created any more chances than we created away from home. We just didn't have the man to finish them off or that man didn't take the right touch, make the right header or have the right bit of luck.
"When the ball went squirming across the box it just wouldn't deflect off someone and go into the back of the net for us. A scruffy goal or any goal would have done for us, but we just couldn't find it."
With Southampton travelling to Middlesbrough on Saturday, West Ham could be out of the race for automatic promotion before they go to Leicester City on Monday.
Should the Saints prevail on Teesside and West Ham assured of a top-three finish, the manager admitted he may reconsider his options for the final two league matches with one eye on the Play-Off fixtures to come in early May.
"It depends on what happens at Middlesbrough now as to how we see it and what we plan for. We can do nothing but just wait until Saturday and take it from there.
"Our hope is that Middlesbrough beat Southampton now, but even then it is going to be a difficult task for Coventry to go to Southampton and get a victory.
"Even though Coventry will do their best to get as many points as they can to get themselves out of the situation that they're in, it's difficult to see Southampton losing.
"We haven't kept enough pressure on them and we could have done so by winning. You have to expect Southampton to beat Peterborough but we'd still have been in the race if we'd have won because they have a difficult game and their nerve-ends would have been jangling. We should have won, but we didn't."