Lucescu enjoys 'deserved' victory

The FC Shakhtar Donetsk coach Mircea Lucescu had identified a strong start as being key to victory against Celtic FC in their opening Group D fixture, and his players responded in style as Brandão and Cristiano Lucarelli scored the only goals inside the opening eight minutes. "We deserved the three points," said the Romanian, while opposite number Gordon Strachan tipped his young side to bounce back.

Mircea Lucescu, Shakhtar coach
This is a very important victory and an important three points. Sometimes in order to progress you need to win all your home matches. I'm happy not only with the points but the performance too - the scoreline doesn't reflect all the chances we had. We pressed really well in the opening 25 minutes and played organised football. After that we allowed Celtic to gain some confidence, and in the second half we made some mistakes and they could have scored. Our centre-backs anticipated crosses and Lewandowski also did very well covering the zone in front of them. There was great link-up play between Jedson, Fernandinho and Ilsinho, with Srna and Rat supporting down the wings. The experience of Lucarelli and the aggressiveness of Brandão told as well. We deserved the three points - the score should have been 6-2. I challenged my players to score early as if we allowed Celtic to control the ball we could have been in trouble.

Gordon Strachan, Celtic manager
We expected Shakhtar to be a good side, which they were. Allowing them to score two goals in the first ten minutes was a shock - we didn't expect that to happen. The turning point was the opening goal. If we'd scored one at any time we could have made it two. We needed to get a hold on the game and to do that we needed a piece of brilliance but couldn't find it. You can't allow goals like that early on when you play away from home in the Champions League. We're disappointed, of course, but it's only the start of the season and we'll get better. This team has little Champions League experience and I can't criticise anyone because the players are so young. They'll prove themselves in the future.