Aston Villa FC

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O'Neill delighted to progress

05 Dec 2008 - 08:07:39

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Aston Villa boss Martin O'Neill played down his side's surprise defeat to MSK Zilina and instead opted to praise their success in qualifying for the last 32 of the UEFA Cup.

Villa's progress through the group stage was confirmed when Hamburg beat Slavia Prague 2-0 on Thursday while Villa were losing 2-1 to a Slovakian side that had failed to win any of their previous three games in the competition.

However, O'Neill said after the Villa Park loss: "We were beaten but we're through - and that's what we set out to do at the start of the European campaign.

"We're in the final 32 and, quite frankly, who cares who we play in the knockout phase. I'm just delighted we're through and I think overall we've deserved to get there.

"We were disappointing, no doubt about it. I thought we were disjointed early on and conceded two goals, which were sloppy from our point of view.

"The first one was very poor while the second one was well worked by them but we should have done better.

"And then Nathan (Delfouneso) got us back in the game at 2-1 and I thought we had plenty of time to conjure an equaliser. It didn't come but it wasn't through lack of effort.

"I was happy with the effort. It was misdirected once or twice but some of them showed tremendous moral courage in trying to put their foot on the ball with the crowd baying for it to be put into the penalty box.

"Some of the players come in for great credit in spite of the defeat.

"Moustapha (Salifou) didn't do as well as he did in Prague but he was heavily under the weather before the game. He wanted to play while other players wouldn't have bothered. He wanted to play and fair play to him."