'It's embarrassing; it's not acceptable': Darren Mullen apologises to the Newry City fans as club inches closer to relegation

Igor Rutkowski put the hosts 1-0 ahead from the penalty spot on 16 minutes, before Newry were reduced to 10 men when Georgie Poynton was shown a straight red card.

City’s misery was compounded in the second half with further goals from Rutkowski, Ruairi Duffy and Owen Degelman putting Armagh 4-0 ahead, before Ryan McNickle scored a consolation.

Manager Darren Mullen spoke to the club’s social media channel following the game, and whilst he felt that the red card decision had a huge impact on the result, what he saw from his players wasn’t good enough.

“It was poor, I can only apologise to the fans for that, that's not what I expected or anybody expected coming to watch the game today, especially a game of this magnitude.

“I thought we started the game well, created a couple of chances and obviously (we conceded) the penalty and then turning point was the sending off, which to be honest I think is ridiculous for a game of this magnitude for a shoulder.

“Yes, it's stupid, yes it's a yellow, but it's not a red card for me. It's different if he shouldered him in the chest or the face or something like that, but he had some square on the shoulder.

“It's a rushed decision from the official, thought it was poor. When he looks back on it, he'll see and it just, as I say, it changed the game.

“After that, we weren't good enough; we changed the shape to try and go at it because we need the result and it probably cost us, left us wide open in certain areas. But look, we haven't been good enough and as manager I'll take full responsibility for it.

The result means that the odds are stacked against Newry, as they need to win their last two games, against Newington and Institute and hope that Newington drop points on the final day of the season.

It has been a disastrous season for the club, who were expected to challenge for promotion at the beginning of the season, and Mullen concedes that the situation is ‘embarrassing’.

“It hasn't been good enough. There are serious reviews needed. Look, the season's not over and it's not as if I'm sitting here saying the season's over, we still have two games left. We just left it very difficult, but we just haven't been good enough. It doesn't come down to one game or a poor referee decision. We can only have ourselves to blame for this. “We've had long enough to fix it and I've had long enough to fix it and haven't. So I can only apologise for it. It's raw at the minute, but we just need to pick ourselves up and go and give it a rattle next Saturday.

“We weren't good enough. Red card or not. We still weren't good enough in certain areas. Didn't hold the ball well enough. It came back in. No complaints. “It's poor and to be honest, it's embarrassing. It's not what I've been used to. I didn't come back for this and I'm not blaming anybody else for this.

“I'm taking full responsibility for this. I'm the manager so I have no issue with that, but it shouldn't be happening for a club to come from the Premiership now to be five points off the bottom of the Championship with two games to go. It's not acceptable and as I said, by no means trying to criticise anybody else.

“This is on me as the manager, but there has to be a serious review here. But that said, there's still two games left to go and all we can do is focus on next Saturday. I've said it from the very outset, if we can't do it, we knew we had three games to win to stay in the league and if we can't do it, then we haven't been good enough.

“There's no excuses for it. The table doesn't lie. It's not like a cup competition. We've had long enough to get ourselves out of it and we haven't.”