Goals from Nedum Onuoha and Stephen Ireland either side of Almeida’s equaliser had given City the scent of their fifth away win in Europe this season. The late leveller from Vingaard took the gloss off, but two away goals give City an advantage going into next Thursday’s game at the City of Manchester Stadium.
The Manager said, “We’re obviously disappointed to lose a goal at that late stage because I thought we would see the game out quite comfortably at that point.
“But we have to look on the positive side, we have turned in a good away performance, got two away goals and overall put in a good professional European performance. It was not the win that we were looking for, but before the game we would have been delighted with what we ended up with. We are in the box seat, and the advantage is ours. It’s up to us to make the most of it.”
The home side tried to make the advantage of playing in front of their vociferous support count, but their attacking approach allowed City to exploit them at the back in Mark’s opinion.
“The opposition came out and attacked us, when teams do that that allows us to get in behind and we have the players to exploit that. With a better final pass we would have scored more, but in the previous games teams have sat back and made it difficult.”
Looking ahead to the return leg, Mark added, “They have come off a midwinter break, and we need to exploit that. But they have a good level of fitness and worked extremely hard. We need to show a bit more quality in the second leg and finish them off.”
