‘You could see it for yourselves, all of the officials were really poor tonight. Football is a contact sport. Right from the very outset he blew his whistle at the slightest of contact and it never allowed any real flow to the game. I thought the sending off was ridiculous. I don’t think you would see that in any other country, two yellow cards for that. I have watched it back and Stockley is just trying to use his arms for leverage, there is no movement of the elbow. If anything, on the first one the defender has jumped into Jayden’s arm and I can’t see cautions for either of them. It’s very unusual to see that type of challenge being a red card.

“From then on it was so much more difficult. I thought we had so much good play in the first half. We were frustrated at the penalty award. If the referee had allowed play to carry on McGinn puts the ball in the net. I thought he was very quick to blow for the penalty-kick. Games are decided on key moments and you could say that the Rooney penalty miss was defining but we still have to overcome the officials and I think they played the biggest part in all of the defining moments tonight.

“I think the referee has got to allow play to go on as there is still an attack and the goalkeeper is out of his goal, McGinn is clearly going onto the ball and my feeling at the time was that the goal should stand. He was too quick to blow his whistle, as we had every chance of scoring, which we did and the goal should stand.

“Credit to Maribor, it was a difficult evening for them in the circumstances. Their goalkeeper has made a few good saves none more so than the penalty-kick but I thought the result was very harsh on my team. My team showed tremendous courage, fight and intelligence and I thought over the two games we deserved more but that’s football.

“I can’t remember Rooney missing a penalty. He is so dependable from 12 yards out and it is very unlike but we don’t apportion any blame or criticism to him as he has been more than key for us and made the difference in so many games, which he will do so again.

“We showed a good attacking threat and the away goal from last week was always going to be pivotal. I thought we did enough tonight to get a goal in the instances we spoke about and we kept a good Maribor team at arm’s length for the majority of it. At 10 men they had a bit more possession but we kept them at arm’s length as they didn’t cut us open too much.

“I thought some of my players grew stronger as the game went on, that resilience from Shinnie, Jack, Reynolds, Considine, Taylor, there was some big performances out there tonight in that heat with ten men.

“It was a horrendous bobble, it’s come up about six inches off the ground and bounced over Joe’s foot. I was just praising Shinnie as he had done well to get back and get the ball, then you turn away and before you know it the ball is in the net. There is no blame with Joe Lewis there at all, that’s the pitch.

“It was a horrendous bobble, it’s come up about six inches off the ground and bounced over Joe’s foot. I was just praising Shinnie as he had done well to get back and get the ball, then you turn away and before you know it the ball is in the net. There is no blame with Joe Lewis there at all, that’s the pitch.