Neil Critchley on Hearts Euro chances and disappointment

Hearts had the better chances in the first half and should have gone into the interval ahead. They were made to rue those misses with the Germans scoring twice.

Critchley spoke of his disappointment but also expressed happiness with the level of performance. He discussed Adam Forrester and looked ahead to the Rangers game on Sunday.

Read or listen to everything he said:

How would you sum up that night? Do you regret missing the chances?

Yeah. That's the one thing to take away from this game tonight. I think you have to score when you're on top. You have to take those chances. We weren't clinical in front of the goal and then we got punished for two real moments of quality. The first goal in particular. I'm disappointed with the result but not the performance. I thought we played just equally as well tonight as we did against Omonia. We just didn't score when we were on top and if we had taken our chances then I think the game was there for us to win. But I thought the attitude of the players and their mentality was good. We went right to the end. Yeah, I'm just disappointed. Sometimes you don't get what you deserve and I don't think we got what we deserved tonight.

Was it hard to replicate the intensity of the first half after the break?

When you're playing against good teams and good opposition, sometimes they change the way that they're building up or they change the position of a player on the pitch and they can gain a little bit of control and then you have to adjust and think about how you're going to adapt to that moment. That was the message to the players tonight before the game. We have to be adaptable in the way that we think on the pitch tonight because this is a team that change and change in-game. If you don't quite get your pressing right, they're good enough then to play through you or gain control in the first phase. It's not easy just to keep pressing and pressing and pressing for 90 minutes. Sometimes you have to control and the goals have not come through them playing through us and gaining control and pushing us back in their own half. The first goal was just a moment of real quality, a counter-attack. He's just dropped and the lad's broken. He's crossed it and he's running and it was a great goal. It was nothing to do with them gaining control of the game. It was a counter-attack moment. I thought we were excellent after that. I thought our response was really good. It's just disappointing we didn't get... I felt we deserved more from the game. We played against good opposition. We went toe-to-toe in a real good competitive game, European game. Good atmosphere and unfortunately we've come out the wrong side tonight.

Do you feel you're still pretty well-placed ahead of the Bruges game?

Yeah, I think so. Winning tonight would have helped. I say if we keep producing that level of performance then we'll win games of football. The test for us is to keep showing that mentality, keep showing the same attitude, keep showing the ability that we showed on the ball as well. We produced some really good moves, good moments. The only thing missing tonight was the final bit. Disappointment obviously, the down because I think sometimes you know when you get beat if you haven't played well. Sometimes it's harder to take when you know you have played well. There's moments we can always improve on every game. We always look to win, lose or draw. We always look to evaluate, learn and then try to improve our performance and move on. The players, I don't want them to be downhearted after that performance because I thought for long periods of the game tonight we would have been a better team.

How would you assess Adam Forrester's performance and his role?

I thought he was excellent. I thought it was fantastic for a young boy to play. We asked him to do a slightly different role tonight and how we wanted to build up and control the game. Also defensively, his man from his side was rolling inside the pitch and sometimes he was going a little bit too narrow. We wanted him to pass the man on to Frankie but Frankie was a number 9 and a number 10 in there so you have to manage space and distances. It's a great learning experience for Adam because if you over cover you leave too much space on the outside for the left back to join in. I thought the way he coped with the game, his temperament, I thought he was competitive, I thought he used the ball well, I thought he got forward well. I thought he was brilliant.

Was that a Hearts performance you want, especially the first half?

I just want us to be a team that plays with purpose, aggression, front foot, just go for the game, appetite to take the game to the opposition. Whoever we're playing against, home or away. It's not always easy, particularly with the game schedule we're in at the moment. We know going to Ibrox will be a difficult game, it always is, but what a great challenge for us to look forward to again.

You don't really have to raise the squad for Rangers, do you?

I watched a lot of their game tonight against Olympiacos and they've got good players. You go to Olympiacos and draw and that's a good point away from home. They've done well in Europe so far so you know you're going to have to do certain things well at Ibrox if you want to win a game of football. But if we can go there and produce a similar type of performance, we don't have long between the game but neither do they. We're in the same boat, aren't we? They've had to travel so let's recover, let's prepare in the short period of time that we've got and let's go again.

Do you reshuffle the pack again?

We'll think about it, yeah, we'll think about it. I've got 48 hours to decide that. We'll see, I think lots of the players played well tonight, I thought there was lots of good performances. So it'll be some tough decisions to make.

Nothing serious with Beni was there?

No, just a little bit of fatigue and stuff. That was the same, I think Adam as well, that was understandable. You're just trying to bring a little bit more energy onto the pitch or a goal-scoring threat. When you're chasing a game you're trying to get as many goal scorers on the pitch as you can.