Manuel Pellegrini refused to criticise his players for losing at home to Barcelona on Thursday evening in their Copa del Rey quarter-final.
The Costa del Sol outfit are eliminated from the competition after a 4-2 defeat this midweek made for a 6-4 aggregate loss.
“I am not frustrated. We saw a great show of football at La Rosaleda and that should always be a joy for people who have paid to see it,” reflected the Chilean Coach afterwards.
“We showed our face the whole game. At 2-2 we also had a very clear chance to make it 3-2. I have nothing to reproach my players for, we had a great game against a great opponent and they progressed for being better.
“The referee? The Coaches are not impartial enough to analyse the actions of an official. Now we have to focus our team for Sunday… We have had a very difficult Copa del Rey test.
“I do not think that this result has affected team morale. There is a calmness about our level of play, how to approach the game, for the fierce battle that we gave Barcelona. We have little time to recover, though.
“Did we get tired in the second half? I do not think we paid the penalty for our physical effort in the first half. Our problem was the technical capacity that Barcelona had in very small spaces.
“We always had to score on the counter-attack and is why we spent more physically.”
