Unai Emery admitted he was “annoyed and hurt” by Sevilla’s 1-0 defeat to Molde in the Europa League last 32 on Thursday.
Los Nervionenses progressed to the round of 16 with a 3-1 aggregate victory over the Norwegians, thus keeping them in with a shout of a third straight European title, but the Coach was frustrated with his side’s failure to turn their “control” of the second leg into goals.
“Our primary objective for the match was to ensure we went through, but the result annoyed me,” he said after the game.
“We controlled the game, but our lack of success [with our finishing] was made to count by their goal.
“We wanted to win, but progressing [to the next round] comes above everything.
“Still, we need to be more competitive and we’ll continue working with the players.
“What hurts me is that we lost. If we were more accurate, we’d have scored a few goals.
“We need to be critical [of this performance] because there are things to fix, which will make us stronger.
“I don’t want to look for excuses, such as the cold climate or artificial grass, because we won in St Petersburg last year, so we leave Norway with the bad taste of defeat.
“Still, the team leave with positives [referring to their involvement in Friday’s draw].”
