The English Premier League side were comfortably victorious in the first leg of the Play-Off game at Easter Road, scoring three in the first half and two in the second.

When speaking after the game, Johnson gave his thoughts.

“I’m proud of the Club for getting to this point,” he said.

“It was a fantastic win seven days ago against Luzern – one of the best in our history in terms of European ties – and that set up this showcase game. Where I was disappointed tonight was when we had moments of control, we didn’t do well enough. If you look at the first three goals, I genuinely think they were avoidable if you make better decisions. At that moment, we weren’t ripped apart by the gulf in quality.

“At times you have to hold your hands up and say there is a gulf in athleticism, quality, and decision-making. It’s a really good lesson for our lads because they will have felt that. Hopefully this experience will allow us to drive standards more and more.”

England international Ollie Watkins scored his first of three within the first 20 minutes of the games, a goal which was a big blow to the Hibees’ hopes.

“It was a big sucker punch but you’re still in the tie. What was disappointing for me was that we didn’t show enough charisma on the ball. The shape was ok. Their goalkeeper comes out and play, which makes it difficult to know when to press, and when you do press, they pick you off with their quality, but I didn’t actually think that was a problem in the first 20-25 minutes.

“When we did win the ball back, we didn’t do enough. We had fire in the belly, but we didn’t have the ice in the head in terms of movement, touch, control, and fire; that was the gulf in class, which led us to not be good enough and concede ground. They then had high quality players that caused us problems.”