Statements by Pellegrini

“It’s an important victory for us, against a difficult team who were always on the attack.  The team were completely focused on the match from the start, and were always looking to create goal chances.”

“I don’t like to analyse the referee’s decisions, we always respect whatever choice is made, and focus on the end result.”

“It doesn’t worry me when players get sent off.  We always play as well as we can, and have won the Fair Play award.  I don’t consider Eliseu as being sent off; Sergio Sánchez was sent off following play that I believe shouldn’t have resulted in a penalty and he was given a yellow card, and then he received another due to a split decision.  The team performed well today.”

“I’m really pleased with the team’s performance, and the results show this.  We’re very happy with the players as individuals.  I couldn’t wish for anything more as a coach, the team is playing brilliantly.  We’ve now got four new players to add to Portillo, Recio and Juanmi, who are training well to ensure they’re match-fit.”

“We went on to the pitch full of confidence.  I said in the pre-match press conference that our performance today will give us a good indication of what we can achieve on Tuesday.  We’re up against a tough team, but we’ll try and dominate the match with our game play against Zenit, and get through to the next round.”