MANAGER Ruaidhrí Higgins apologised to the Derry City supporters who made the trip to Gibraltar for the dreadful 2-0 loss at FCB Magpies at the Europa Point Stadium.
Higgins and his team were greeted to boos and abuse from the 250 Candystripes followers on Thursday night and the Limavady man conceded he understood their frustration, especially as they had spent their hard-earned cash to travel.
“We’ve all let the club down,” he insisted.
“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.
“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.
“Disappointing is an understatement. The goals we gave 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.
“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 the most, to be honest, is our supporters, particularly the ones that travelled.
“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.
“I completely get it. 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.”
The Foylesiders’ Europa Conference League first-leg defeat means they are firmly behind the eight-ball and the manner in which City conceded the two goals to Ashton Taylor and Franciso Zuniga really annoyed Higgins.
“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,” added the 39-year-old.
“We have to take responsibility, everything, individually, collectively, and take more pride in what we do because we didn’t do that.
“The fact that we’ve got 90 minutes to put it right – listen, 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. It’s definitely a real, real low point.
“But the only bit of positivity that you can take out of it 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,” added Higgins ahead of Thursday’s return leg at the Brandywell.
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