Bradley bemoans 'worst ever performance' from Rovers
· Dave Donnelly · 2026-08-14T05:57:37+00:00 · nguồn gốc
Stephen Bradley cut a disconsolate figure following "the worst performance" he's ever seen as his Shamrock Rovers side crashed out of the Europa League with a 5-1 defeat away to Egnatia.
The Hoops headed into the second leg in Rrogozhine, Albania with a commanding 3-1 lead but the wheels quickly came off as they conceded three times inside 20 minutes.
Things would only get worse for the Tallaght side as they conceded two more goals either side of the break before Graham Burke pulled back a late consolation.
Not that there will be any consoling a Shamrock Rovers side who performed well below the standards they have set themselves against an inferior opposition at the European level.
"Tonight is probably the worst performance I’ve ever seen from us," said a scathing Bradley, who visibly bristled as his side squandered potentially huge prize money.
"No, there’s no positives from that performance. That’s everything we’re not and what we haven’t been. You don’t get away with at any level, and not European level."
Goals from Daniel Adjessa, Alessandro Albanese and Ildi Gruda saw the home side race into the simplest of leads before the mid-point in the first half.
Adjessa and Albanese each doubled their tallies the latter after Edison Ndreca’s senseless red card on half time for the hosts, but Rovers couldn’t make the man advantage count.
The Hoops - dressed in their navy change kit - looked off colour in more ways than one and showed few of the attributes that have seen them race seven points clear in the league.
Bradley continued: "You don’t start games like that. We knew they were going to start quick, but we came away from everything that we wanted to, everything that we did last week.
"We just came away from everything and just made ridiculous errors at this level, which just wasn’t good enough.
"I did say after the first leg I was disappointed we didn’t score more because, you know, away from home in Europe it’s always different.
"But regardless of the chances we missed last week, we still came here and we had a game in front of us that we had to win and we haven’t performed at all.
"And right now that feels like the worst performance I’ve ever seen from us."
Rovers will have little time to dust themselves down as they face KuPS of Finland in the play-off round for the UEFA Europa Conference League next week.
First comes an FAI Cup third round tie away with Dublin rivals St Patrick's Athletic on Sunday, so Bradley is keenly aware the players cannot feel down lest standards fall.
"The players know but, as you can imagine, the dressing room is not in a good place after the game, losing heavy like that, performing like that.
"We know, staff, players and as a group, we know that’s a million miles away from our levels and what we set ourselves. And you don’t get away with it.
"We have to learn. There’s no point in just trying to move on and forget about this. It’s up there with one of the worst performances I’ve ever seen from us.
"So we have to understand what went wrong in everything and try and put that right going forward."