Statements from Pellegrini
“To be honest, Rayo only created a few chances to score. We had four or five clear opportunities in the first half, but we were only just gaining speed and were very nervous today.”
“There are always positive and negative aspects to every game. However we were quite nervous ahead of this match, and we didn’t perform as well as normal. It’s been a difficult, disorganised week, in many aspects. It’s hard to pinpoint reasons for the poor performance; although it’s been a very tough few days from an emotional and sporting point of view. We had a long journey to Cáceres midweek, as well next week’s Champions League match coming up. It was really a series of factors which contributed to this performance, and luck definitely wasn’t on our side today.”
“We’re hoping that this was just a bad match for us, in which we’ve lost three important points from a home game, especially as we’re facing Milan on Tuesday. Every team loses a match like this each season, so I hope we can get back to our usual performance on Tuesday.”
“When we lose, I don’t like to look for excuses. We defeated Valladolid on this same ground the other day. It’s just the way the game goes. We didn’t manage to score from the opportunities we created, which is why we lost.”
