United's squad have maintained a measured attitude in response to their erratic chain of results but Snodgrass broke cover at the weekend with a damning verdict on a fixture he felt the club had wasted.

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The Scot did not take issue with Leeds' performance against Brentford but he could see little more than costly failure in the 1-1 scoreline that saw their players booed from the field at Elland Road.

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"You can't put your finger on what's happening," he said. "Some of you (the media) watching from the stands probably can't put your finger on it either.

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"We absolutely battered them in spells of the game but we've come away with a draw. In the first half, the game should have been dead and buried."

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The Scot admitted that another unsatisfactory result – the ninth time in little over two months that Leeds have failed to win a league fixture – had opened the door once more to the teams in League One who would seek to deprive Leeds of automatic promotion.

That prize will be truly in the balance if tonight's match at Tranmere Rovers follows the same trend.

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This is United's game in hand over Norwich City and Charlton Athletic, clubs on either side of them in the League One table.

The fixture was shunted to a midweek slot by Leeds' FA Cup tie at Manchester United in January, a highlight of their season which seems strangely distant after a long stretch of inconsistency.

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For many weeks, United's players knew that the additional league games created by their long involvement in the FA Cup were a potentially crucial advantage in the most competitive of divisions.

This evening's match at Prenton Park is an opportunity to force back the group of five clubs behind them, two of whom also play tonight. Snodgrass is adamant that Leeds cannot afford to waste it.

"Every game's major now and this is one we have to win," he said. "We need to put pressure on the teams below us and get ourselves away from that pack.

"At the moment, we're not doing as well as we did in the first half of the season. We can only keep going, believe in our ability and do everything we can individually. Hopefully it'll all come together as a group.

"But we've got to deal with what's in front of us and right now I don't feel like we're doing that. It happened in spells of the Brentford game but defensive errors cost us."

Tranmere are a changed club from that which put up feeble resistance at Elland Road in August, losing 3-0 in a manner which was typical of the tenure of their former manager, John Barnes.

The former Liverpool midfielder was appointed by Rovers last summer as a replacement for Ronnie Moore but he survived in the job for only four months. On the day in October when Tranmere announced his sacking, their league record showed two wins and seven points accumulated from 11 matches.

Since then, Tranmere have been in the capable hands of their former physiotherapist Les Parry, named initially as their caretaker and later as manager on a permanent basis until the end of the season.

Parry revived the fight in Rovers and has generated results good enough to take issue with what appeared to be an inevitable relegation. On Saturday, their spirit was evident in a 2-1 defeat of Southampton, a form club who were fresh from a 5-0 rout of Huddersfield Town.

Ian Thomas-Moore completed the victory with a late penalty, and United's former striker insisted the onus to attack would be on Leeds at Prenton Park tonight. "Leeds are having a little bit of a wobble at the moment so they'll need to win here," he said. "They'll push forward trying to get goals and hopefully that will play into our hands."

For Grayson, this evening's fixture could be invaluable, potentially the difference between the two-point advantage his squad hold over Charlton and a five-point lead with 11 games to play.

The consolation for him in a spell of the season when regular victories have eluded Leeds is the fact that his squad have succeeded in retaining second place, despite the pressure building beneath them in League One's play-off positions.

"This is a big game for us," Grayson said. "If we win it then it obviously pulls us away from the teams around us and gives us a good gap again.

"But I'm pleased with how we've been playing and we're four games unbeaten now. I'd have liked us to win more of those games and turn draws into victories but nobody said that getting promoted was going to be easy. The teams around us keep winning and losing as well."

Grayson declared himself satisfied with United's performance against Brentford, insisting his players had shown more composure in attack than they had in previous weeks.

United's manager saw promise in the contribution of wingers Snodgrass and Gary McSheffrey, the on-loan Birmingham City player who looked as dangerous on Saturday as he has since moving to Leeds from St Andrews.

Grayson, however, may have more concerns about the centre of his midfield, an area of Leeds' team which was less convincing against Brentford.

"We moved the ball from one side to the other and got it to our attacking players," he said. "I thought Snodgrass and Gary McSheffrey were a real handful and showed their quality.

"We've been a little bit guilty in the last few weeks of trying to get the ball into our strikers too quickly but we worked some good opportunities and tested their back four. That was the pleasing part of how we played."