CAPITAL PAIN
Robbie rages as Hearts join Hibs on Euro scrapheap
ROBBIE NEILSON was left ‘devastated’ last night after his Hearts side tumbled out of the Europa League and became the first Scottish team to lose to Maltese opposition.
And he told his players they need to learn from the bitter disappointment of losing 2-1 to the unheralded Birkirkara with Prince Buaben the main culprit after missing a first-half penalty.
On a night when Scottish football’s reputation took another battering, only Aberdeen had cause to celebrate as they cruised past Ventspils to set-up a meeting with Maribor in
the next round. Hibs were left to lament the mistakes and missed opportunities of the first leg when they beat Brondby 1-0 in Denmark to level the tie only to go out on penalties. ‘Obviously we’re devastated,’ said Neilson. ‘We passed the ball well, created a lot of chances, had a penalty, hit the bar twice. ‘We got done with a sucker punch. That’s European football. Young players, young coaches. We can’t let teams score goals like that against us. ‘The turning point was giving up the goal. A poor goal to lose. You can’t do that in Europe. ‘They came here tonight and, if we’d scored early, scored the penalty, it might have been different. ‘Yes, we’re devastated tonight. We’re devastated for the club, the fans but we’ll learn from it. ‘We’ve got a young group of players, up against an experienced team. We dominated for long, long periods. ‘When teams sit in, it makes it difficult for you, you need to be patient. We did that — we just didn’t have the finish. ‘We work from here until the end of the season to get this opportunity again.’ For Hibs boss Neil Lennon, there was pride in seeing his side’s spirited display against Brondby
but it came to nothing as they exited on penalties. And he is adamant the better side lost. ‘I am proud of them and pleased with them because they did exactly what we set out to do, which was to win,’ he said. ‘And without poor officials in the first tie we’d have been through. ‘Any luck in this tie went against us. However I cannot speak highly enough of the team. To come away from home and to lose by a penalty shootout is hard to take. But we need to start from here. ‘We feel we were the better team and, but for a horrendous goalkeeper error and scoring a perfectly good goal that wasn’t allowed, we would be through.’ Lennon insisted no blame would be laid at John McGinn, who was the only man of the eight penalty takers to fail from the spot. He continued: ‘That is by-the-by. They could have missed one or two themselves, it was bad luck. ‘I don’t think you can talk about “villains” after a night like that and a performance like that. We were absolutely brilliant and did the fans here proud.’ Lennon also reserved special praise for debutant goalkeeper Ross Laidlaw, who replaced Otso Virtanen and added: ‘Ross had a superb game and was unlucky not to save one or two of the penalties, one of them went in off the post.’