KR boss not giving up hope after Celtic loss
- adamhigginsuk
- Jul 16, 2014
- 2 min read
Hope: Kristinsson knows his side still have a slim chance of overturning Celtic's slender advantage next week (Picture from theapricity.com)
KR Reykjavik boss Runar Kristinsson is hopeful his side can recover against Celtic in the second leg of their Champions League qualifier.
The Icelandic champions lost the first leg 1-0 at home, holding their own until Calum McGregor struck in the 84th minute.
Although he played down their chances of causing an upset at Murrayfield next Tuesday, Kristinsson is not giving up just yet.
"We've not got many chances [of overturning the deficit] but we'll try. We're going to go there and try to give them a game, like we did tonight," he told BBC Sport Scotland after the game.
"They needed to play well and they needed to keep the ball well in the game and try to create chances.
"Most of their chances came from shots outside the box. They never played through us and created chances through that kind of football.
"We need to try to do the same thing when we go back to Scotland next week. Hopefully, we can get a goal early and give them a good game."
Kristinsson praised his side's defensive resilience, and rued a missed opportunity shortly before Celtic's goal, but conceded the result was fair.
"We defended well, I felt we fell a little bit too much back in the second half, but I think the boys did well throughout," the 44-year-old former Icelandic midfielder said.
"Then in the last five minutes we conceded a goal. Just a couple of minutes before that, we had a great chance to score.
"Like we talked about going into this game, we might have one or two chances. If we defended well, we might have one or two chances to snatch it.
"But in the end, it went the other way. It was a wicked deflection past the goalkeeper so it was a bit of a lucky goal but we were lucky a couple of times as well when they hit the woodwork."
Kristinsson admitted KR's gameplan worked to a certain extent and highlighted fatigue as a factor in the latter stages, when Celtic made the decisive breakthrough.
"We planned to defend, not that deep but we tried to hit them on the counter," he added.
"We could have done a little better on our counters but the boys get tired as the time goes along. Especially in the last 10 or 15 minutes, they were quite tired which is why we conceded this goal with five minutes to go."
Last updated: 16 July 2014 10:22am
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