Boris Mfoumou of Differdange battles for possession with Saints' Dan WilliamsImage source, Getty Images
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Saints were knocked out of the Champions League by Shkendija

The New Saints' hopes of progressing in the Uefa Conference League hang in the balance after a dismal 1-0 defeat at home to Differdange 03.

Saints put in a underwhelming performance against the Champions of Luxembourg in the second qualifying round first leg at Park Hall.

Craig Harrison's side had dropped into the Conference League following their exit from the Champions League qualifiers a week earlier.

Their hopes of progressing in Europe and repeating last season's exploits in the competition will disappear if they fail to win the second leg next Tuesday.

Differdange took the game to the hosts and looked threating but it was Saints who had the first real chance of note.

Dominic Corness' shot from a difficult angle was well gathered by Differdange's 41-year-old custodian Felipe.

But the visitors went ahead seven minutes before the break when Artur Arbeu made a strong run into the box and his strong finish beat Saints keeper Nathan Shepperd.

Sair Hadji flashed a shot past the post as the visitors started the second half strongly while Saints lost full-back Harvey Godsmark-Ford through injury.

Corness fired past the post for Saints while Hadji should have secured his side's second, but his effort was denied by Shepperd.

Substitute Aramide Oteh did put the ball in the net during the final 10 minutes but he was ruled to be offside.

It was the fourth successive game at Park Hall that Saints had failed to score and their European hopes will be over if they don't find the net in the away leg.

The New Saints head coach Craig Harrison told BBC Radio Shropshire:

"I'm bitterly disappointed. I need to look at the game back, look at it in a bit more detail and depth and see what we need to do and what we need to do better.

"We didn't create as many chances as we'd have liked to in the final third. Looking through the stats we had 73% possession of the ball – but it doesn't mean a lot if you can't score a goal and that's the disappointing part.

"We need to convert that dominance and possession and the amount of ball we had to actual winning games and scoring goals."

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