Malafeev praise for Shakhtar saviour Rybka

Despite an impressive display from FC Zenit St Petersburg, goalkeeper Vyacheslav Malafeev was disappointed to be leaving FC Shakhtar Donetsk with just a 2-2 draw to show for their efforts. The Russian international believed the visitors would be travelling home with a second successive Group G victory were it not for his opposite number Olexandr Rybka, while the home squad also had cause for regret.

Vyacheslav Malafeev, Zenit goalkeeper
If someone had offered us a point before the game we would have taken it but as the match went on, and we managed to create so many chances, then of course we have dropped two points. We had plenty of opportunities in both halves and had it not been for their goalkeeper [Olexandr Rybka] we would have definitely won. Every player has a game which defines his career and he put in an absolutely fantastic display; there's no doubt he earned his side a point.

Everything is still in our hands − we have got two matches to play at home and we also travel to [Porto]. We can improve and if we perform like we did here in those two matches then we can wrap up qualification and relax a bit in our final game. However, we mustn't look too far into the future and we need to concentrate on our next game.

Nicolas Lombaerts, Zenit defender
It was a good game, end to end. We had lots of chances to score more and were a bit unlucky not to do so. But this is football – it's not science and you know how things will end up if you don't take your opportunities. You can have 20 chances but they scored two and we scored two and that's the end result.

Tomáš Hübschman, Shakhtar midfielder
Both sides had spells in the game when they were on top. It's difficult to say that we're happy with a point as we were leading 2-1. Jadson had a couple of excellent chances early in the second half and if he'd taken one we would have gone 3-1 in front and it would have been difficult for Zenit to come back. Unfortunately, we made a few mistakes and that cost us in the end.

Dmytro Chygrynskiy, Shakhtar defender
I don't think we played that badly, but we can certainly play a lot better than this. We hoped to get all three points but were not able to get the victory that we needed. We were a little unlucky.