Dundee United captain Paul Paton admits the Tangerines face a “near-impossible” task to save their season.
With the chance of reaching the William Hill Scottish Cup final now gone, Paton and his teammates have to somehow pick themselves off the floor and face the five remaining Premiership matches.
They will do so with the cloud of relegation hanging over them, sitting as they do eight points behind second-bottom team Kilmarnock going into this Sunday’s home game against Hamilton Accies.
They just couldn’t find a way past the Hibs defence in Saturday’s semi-final and ended up losing 4-2 on penalties after a goalless 90 minutes and extra-time period.
It is a miserable situation to say the least but Paton is ready to do his best even though he is carrying a knee injury that had many fearing his season might already be over.
Paton said: “Right now it feels hard, very hard for us as a club. It’s one of the lowest feelings you can get when you lose a game like that on penalties.
“But we have five massive games to come and we have to win all of them. It’s going to be near-impossible but we just have to get on with it.
“We are majorly disappointed. I felt that we were going to go on and win it.
“Obviously, Hibs started really well but as the game wore on we got a hold of it. We had some clear-cut chances but we can’t criticise the boys too much for missing them because they were in the right positions.
“When it went into extra-time, I felt there was only going to be one winner. So it is just really disappointing after the season we have had to have come to Hampden with a massive chance to get into a final and we blew it.”
Paton insisted his knee held up under the strain, saying: “I am fine and came through it all right.
“I just needed somebody to tell me I might be OK and then I knew I was going to play.
“I was a bit tired in the end but I think it was the same for all of us.”
