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Aberdeen "never gave themselves a chance" of overturning their first-leg Europa League defeat by Rijeka, admits manager Derek McInnes.

Trailing 2-0 from the first leg in Croatia, the Scottish side were a goal down before Funso Ojo was shown his second yellow card after 20 minutes.

Aberdeen went on to meekly surrender 4-0 on aggregate at Pittodrie.

"We didn't play our way into the game. We had a lot of young players and we made poor decisions," McInnes said.

"The team was right. The team that started I felt could go and get the job done."

Aberdeen have now failed to get past the Europa League third qualifying round in the past six seasons.

It leaves the Pittodrie side's early season optimism feeling like a distant memory, with defeats in both legs of this tie straddling a Scottish Premiership loss at St Mirren.

"Over the two legs we haven't shown enough and that's why we're out," McInnes said. "I thought we had a bigger and better performance than we showed tonight.

"It's such an unusual circumstance - 15 minutes, 1-0 down and down to 10 men and the game is effectively over. It was such a poor refereeing performance. I've never seen a red that early for two challenges.

"I think the game is done when we go to 10 men effectively. Everything after that is unfair on the team."

Former Aberdeen captain and manager Willie Miller on Sportsound

I thought the first yellow card on Ojo was soft, but the yellow card has been shown so the responsibility then falls on the player. He's made that decision to go into that challenge - he's nowhere near the ball. I don't think you can be criticising the referee for sending Ojo off for the second yellow card, because it was definitely a yellow card in my book.

The first half was poor and even going down to 10 men you've seen teams in the past put up stouter defence performances than what Aberdeen did. In the second half it was just a realisation McInnes wanted to get through this game without losing any more goals.