Stephen Bradley laments errors against clinical Chelsea as he hails goalscorer Markus Poom
Goalscorer Poom jetted back to the Shamrock Rovers camp after his wife gave birth to a child.
Stephen Bradley admitted that Shamrock Rovers were punished for their errors by a ruthless Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Thursday night.
The Hoops coughed up two sloppy first-half goals, with Markus Poom scoring an equaliser between two of Marc Guiu’s three strikes.
Bradley said: “Look you know when you come to places like this against this level of opposition, you’ve got to be faultless in your performance.
“You cannot give them the goals we gave them in the first half.
“You can accept moments of quality that are going to hurt you, that’s normal against this level. But we can’t give them goals we gave them and then compete.
“That’s the learning tonight. At this level, a slight mistake and you get punished.”
Bradley paid tribute to goalscorer Poom, and revealed that the Estonia international flew home to be with his wife and new baby daughter before the visit to Stamford Bridge.
“I’m delighted for Markus, he’s had a big week, his wife just had a baby,” said the Rovers boss.
“He flew back to Estonia to see the baby and he’s back here to play and obviously score, it’s been a nice week for him.
“The fans obviously enjoyed that moment and that moment it’s 1-1 and you’re thinking okay, we’re in the game and then we go and give them a ridiculous goal and then they score before half time and then it’s a completely different game.”
Rovers have qualified for February’s play-off round, with the draw taking place today at 12 noon, so now it’s time for Bradley to focus on re-signing out-of-contract players, and adding to his squad.
“That work is going on in the background,” he said. “Hopefully we can get a few done and then players will now have time off.
“We’ve been working together over a year, it’s important that we have time off and come back in January and get ready for the play-off game.
“As a staff, we’ll be working to get players in and players re-signed.”
The Hoops boss hopes last night’s defeat - and the manner in which they conceded the first two goals - will serve as an opportunity for his players to grow.
“Look we knew tonight was going to be difficult, we knew we had to be at our very best to come here and compete against this level, we knew that,” he said.
“The learning is you can’t give away silly goals in big moments. But let’s be clear, we’re not going to be play against this level a lot.
“We have 11 points, we’ve come here in the play-offs, we’d have taken that before the competition started.
“I know these operate aa different level and have done for many years, we’re not going to play against this level very often.
“But the learning is when you go up the levels, you can’t give them silly goals because the moments of quality will hurt you.”
Bradley reckons Chelsea will win the Europa Conference League outright - if they want it hard enough.
“It depends where they are in the Premier League and how they are with injuries and how the squad is,” he said.
“If they want to they can show up and probably put another two XIs out there and win this competition.
“If they’re in the Champions League they could go close to winning that. That’s the level they have. They’re a top club in Europe and if they want I have no doubt they can win it.”
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