The home side were worthy winners and have left Bruce full of optimism that they can cement their place in the top flight.

He said: “I have just said to the staff that, with a bit of luck, we could well have taken something off Blackburn last week and then we would have seven points which would have been a wonderful start.

“As it is, I’ve got to look back and be satisfied. If we keep maintaining that sort of performance – because that’s what it will take – then we could be OK.

“It was a similar performance from us against Blackburn but things didn’t go for us. But that’s the standard they’ve set and we’ve got to maintain it.

“Everyone was disappointed in midweek when we conceded a goal in the last 20 seconds. There were a lot of disappointed faces in the dressing room.

“We had to pick ourselves up from that and all credit to the players for producing an unbelievable performance to beat a very good team.

“The spirit and commitment was again first class. Robbie Savage and Aliou Cisse started us off and Damien Johnson has played well again.

“That was also Paul Devlin’s first game in the Premiership and he thinks it’s easy! That will give us the belief that if we maintain that, we can do alright.”

Leeds boss Terry Venables was unhappy with the work rate of his side after they followed Wednesday’s defeat against Sunderland with another lacklustre display.

He said: “We all knew what work had to be done but we only played in fits and starts and they got stuck into us.

“There were one or two things we couldn’t get to grips with and we have still got to be better.

“We had two good wins and worked really hard. In those games we had problems but stuck at it and got our rewards.

“Today it never worked out like that. They set their stall out to unsettle us and you have got to stand up to that before thinking of doing something else.

“We’ve got to put our all-round game together all the time. There is work to be done but it has to be put on hold now because of the internationals coming up.”