Derek McInnes was left “mortified” by Rangers’ Conference League play-off exit following the 4-3 penalty shoot-out defeat to Jablonec in the Stadion Strelnice.
Leading 1-0 from the first leg at Ibrox last week, the disjointed Light Blues deservedly found themselves level on aggregate when Jablonec midfielder Vakhtang Tchanturishvili scored in the 73rd minute with a drive and the game went to extra time.
There were no more goals which brought penalties, and although Gers keeper Ivor Pandur saved from Filip Zorvan, Rangers attacker Findlay Curtis fired his spot-kick over the bar and James Penrice was thwarted by Jablonec keeper Jan Hanus, leaving Jan Chramosta to fire in the decisive penalty.
The Govan side were knocked out of the Europa League qualifiers by Polish side Jagiellonia Bialystok and the rebuild of Rangers by McInnes, who has signed 12 players with more to come since arriving from Hearts in the summer, is up in the air.
McInnes said: “First of all, I’m embarrassed with the performance. I think the only people who represented the club well tonight were my staff, the support staff in the preparation.
“We do so much right here to get the players ready and in peak condition to go and perform. And the supporters, who to a man were outstanding, getting behind the team despite watching what we all watched.
“It wasn’t a good performance at any stretch of the imagination. Then you think you might just get through.
“It shouldn’t have come down to two boys, James Penrice and Findlay Curtis, in tears for missing a penalty kick. It shouldn’t have come down to that.
“I’m not going to sit here and make any excuses whatsoever. It wasn’t good enough.
“I thought the opposition were better than us in most aspects of the game so we got what we deserved. If we’d won it on penalties, we’d have taken it, of course, because of how important that is. But we’d have covered over the cracks, to be honest.
“I’m mortified by the performance. I know you can lose games of football, but we should have enough in the building to take care of that tonight.
“Yes, there’s been a big turnover of players. Yes, we looked very inexperienced at times. But the responsibility is mine to make sure that we are better than what we served up tonight. And we were miles short, miles short.
“I’ll take responsibility for the result, but the responsibility is shared. The players have got to be better than that. We know that. It’s my job to help the players but they’ve got to help themselves as well.
“It’s such a low point. I’m embarrassed with the result. I’m gutted for the supporters because they’ve come here. We come over on a charter flight, we stay in a nice hotel, we get all the preparation, and they come here whatever way they can.
“They don’t always need to see their team perform brilliantly, but they do deserve to see their team perform way better than that. For that, it’s not good enough.”
Motherwell were left to rue another costly red card as their European adventure ended with a 4-1 defeat away to Europa League finalists Freiburg.
A week after Martin Moormann’s sending off paved the way for the Germans to win 3-1 in the first leg of their Conference League play-off, Well had Jake Girdwood-Reich dismissed just before the hour mark while the second leg in Europa-Park Stadion was level at 1-1.
Emmanuel Longelo’s equaliser, following a blunder from home goalkeeper Mio Backhaus, cancelled out an early opener from Derry Scherhant.
But Well’s hopes of emerging unscathed from a formidable trip to Germany were dashed by two set-pieces goal within minutes of the red card before a late strike from Keisuke Goto sealed a 7-2 aggregate win.