"We're not feeling sorry for ourselves" - Cork City's Cotter

John Cotter believes his side are still capable of reaching the second qualifying round of the Europa League despite their hugely disappointing defeat to Progrés Niederkorn at Turner’s Cross on Thursday night.

A brace of errors from right wing back Colm Horgan allowed Belmin Muratovic and Mayron De Almeida to give Niederkorn a commanding lead heading into next Thursday night’s first qualifying round second leg in Luxembourg.

But Cotter has called on his side to show some character as they look to turn the tie around and potentially set up a meeting with Steven Gerrard’s Rangers in the next stage.  

“We gave away two awful goals,” admitted Cotter. 

“I thought we started the first ten minutes quite well, on the front foot but you can’t legislate for mistakes like that.

“The most disappointing thing is the two goals. You can’t legislate for that, whether you’re favourites or not. If you make two mistakes like that, you just need to pick yourselves up and get going again. That’s what we’re planning to do next week.

“We need to regroup. We need to show a bit of character and if we go over there and score the first goal the tie is open again and that’s what we have to do.

“It’s pointless going over there with your tail between your legs and feeling sorry for yourself. There’ll be no one going over there like that, I can assure you.

“Sometimes you need a bit of patience in these moments. We have that and we know what we have to do. That doesn’t just happen overnight. These things take time. We just need to have confidence that it will turn. That’s what we’re planning to do is keep working hard.

“We have good people all through the club, from the players and the staff to the people behind the scenes, the board. Everyone is rowing together, to be fair, that is the case at the moment and that’s all we can keep doing.”