Leeds United must defeat Burnley on Saturday and hope lowly Scunthorpe avoid defeat at Nottingham Forest for Simon Grayson’s men to have any hope of qualifying for the promotion play-offs.

With two matches to play, Forest currently hold sixth place on 69 points, with Millwall and Burnley two points behind a play-off spot and Leeds a further point adrift.

Millwall have home advantage against fourth-placed Swansea but all that will be meaningless for Leeds if their winless run stretches to six matches when Burnley visit Elland Road.

With Forest and Millwall possessing superior goal differences, Saturday’s 1-0 defeat at Crystal Palace was a crushing blow for Leeds, who dropped from seventh to ninth, their lowest position since late October.

Deep down, Grayson must know his players have blown their chance with three defeats and two draws from their last five games and just one win from the last eight.

Grayson said: “If we miss out, so be it. We’ve given it a go over the last nine months and will continue to do so. Anything is possible and we will see what happens. We are not down and out yet.”

Burnley’s three-match winning run came to an end on Monday when they were held to a 1-1 draw by Portsmouth at Turf Moor.

United came back from a two-goal deficit to defeat the Clarets at Turf Moor in December but even a repeat of that score-line at Elland Road on Saturday may not be enough.

At this stage Grayson is again refusing to rule out top scorer Luciano Becchio, who has missed the last two games, but hamstring injuries can be notoriously slow to heal so the striker’s season may be over.