While a 3-0 defeat to Legia Warsaw in Tuesday’s Champions League first qualifying round second leg was harsh on City, it couldn’t be denied that the Polish champions were the better side overall.

City did create opportunities – especially in the 1-0 home leg defeat last week – and Beattie feels that a greater conversion rate is required at this level.

“We created some amount of chances over the two legs,” he says, “people probably didn’t think we’d be able to create as much.

“We just didn’t take our chances and at this level you get punished, we got punished severely.

“Obviously, a wonder goal in the first leg set us back so we knew we had to come here and score. We did enough to score, but if you make those mistakes you’re going to get punished at this level.

Unfortunately. that was our doing

“We knew Legia could score but we still needed a goal or two. A goal would have got the fans on their back. Unfortunately, we didn’t get it. We didn’t take our chances. That’s football.”

Nevertheless, Beattie believes that the team can be proud of how they performed overall, with City still in the tie until Legia’s second goal with 17 minutes left on Tuesday night.

“No-one gave us a realistic chance, but I personally didn’t think there was a massive jump in level,” he says.

“We’ve played against Genk and those sorts of teams so we knew what to expect off Legia. Personally, I was happy with my performance. I didn’t think I was a million miles off and I’d say a few of the boys are proud of how they did as well.

But, at the end of the day, individual performances mean nothing. We’re knocked out of the Champions League. I thought we had a real shot to advance.

There is little time for licking wounds though as City return to league action against Derry City on Monday night.

“Our focus is the league, it’s our bread and butter,” Beattie says. “When the Europa League rolls along we’ll deal with that, but straight away facing into Monday we can’t wait to make this right.

“We got knocked out by Legia Warsaw, we’ll be able to dust ourselves off. I think we did the City proud. I know the score doesn’t reflect it but I thought we flew the flag well.

“Obviously the result doesn’t look like that but we know ourselves that we did well.”