Rangers European dream came to a halt as the Ibrox side miss out in European football for the first time since 2017.
After a 1-0 win in Govan last week, hopes were high of progressing to the UEFA Conference League for the first time, but it just wasn’t to be in the Czech Republic. Rangers failed to cause any real problems last night, and a 73rd-minute strike by Tchanturishvili forced the tie into extra time. Neither side was able to find the net in the extra period, meaning penalties awaited.
Rangers were unable to progress, after both James Penrice and Findlay Curtis missed their spot-kicks, to see Jablonec into the league phase draw this afternoon.
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.”