"Both their goals were gifts tonight," said Lightbourne. "Nigel (Burgess) said the ball came off Omar (Shakir) for the first goal," said a dejected Lighbourne.

"We keep conceding soft goals and I think the three goals Pittsburgh Riverhounds have scored against us this season have all come from free-kicks.

"We could see our confidence visibly drift away as soon as they took the lead.

"We were very poor, especially in the first half and I almost made four substitutions at half time as no player had exactly given a great performance."

"You can definitely say that's the end of our play-off hopes. We're now four points behind Riverhounds who are the next team and must win on Saturday (tomorrow) to close the gap. We must dig in and stick together and try and finish the season on a positive note."