Ruaidhri Higgins: "People take out loans to come out here and we serve that up. It's embarrassing"

Ruaidhri Higgins has apologised to Derry City fans for the teams’ performance in Gibraltar this evening.

The Candystripes suffered an embarrassing 2-0 defeat in the first leg of their Europa Conference League Qualifier against Bruno’s Magpies, and they now have a mountain to climb in the return leg at the Brandywell next Thursday.

“Disappointing is an understatement,” he said. “The goals we give away are completely unacceptable. We had opportunities in the game, but to concede goals like that is completely unacceptable and it's an unacceptable result off the back of it.”

What is particularly unacceptable for Higgins on this occasion is the performance produced by his players for the fans that travelled to Gibraltar.  

“Some of the goals that we've given away this year have been really poor and the consequence of that is you end up losing matches. The people who I feel for, to be honest, the most tonight is our supporters, particularly the ones that travelled,” he continued.

“We spoke about it before the game and in the build-up to the game. The amount of money people would have had to spend to get here to support the football club that they love. People possibly taking out loans to come here and we mentioned it, and they serve that up for them, it's embarrassing really and I apologise to the supporters that travelled and I really, really feel for them.

“Getting stick at full time, I’ll take it. It's part of it and they're right. They're the ones that I really feel for because it's not cheap to get out here and we've done them a real, real, real disservice.”

Derry City players were booed from the pitch by their own supporters at the end of the game and Higgins admits he was not surprised.

“I get it. I completely get it,” he said. “The most important people in any football club are the supporters. Long after I'm here, they'll be here and they'll be here after all the players have been and gone. They're the lifeblood of the club. As it is, we've done them a disservice and there's no other way to describe it.”

“We've all let the club down. Obviously, I'm the manager of the football club and the responsibility falls on my shoulders and rightly so. It's on me and it's a really poor reflection, what we produced tonight. As I said, I can only apologise to the people that spent a hell of a lot of money to get here and we send them home with nothing really from the game.”

Higgins though is not giving up hope that his team can turn the 2-0 deficit around next week.

“When you're in a job like this over three years or coming up to three and a half years, there's going to be a lot of highs and lows,” he stated. “It's definitely a real, real low point. But the only bit of positivity that you can take out of this evening is that we did create a few chances and we've got 90 minutes or 95 minutes to go and try and get through. But we've got a lot of work to do over the next week.”

“Two set plays, really poor; the play leading up to the set plays, we've let ourselves down, naivety and it's cost us, we haven't defended our set plays well enough. We have to take responsibility, everything, individually, collectively and take more pride in what we do because we didn't do that tonight.”