Spalletti bullish as ten-man Zenit resist Austria

Luciano Spalletti, Zenit coach
I think we put in a really good performance, but the red card [for Axel Witsel just before half-time] affected the result. Witsel was fast today, he played a good game before his dismissal, like all the lads. We tried to attack and were not afraid of our opponents. Even with ten men we created chances in the second half, but just couldn't take them.

Maybe we were a bit tired today, but we can recover and be a strong unit again. My team are in good shape right now, but you have to rotate the lineup during such a tough run of fixtures.

Today we made the task of qualifying from the group much harder. Still, I believe we can play at the same level as the leaders of our group. It's six matches and we have to collect more points than two other opponents. I still think we are equal to the task.

Nenad Bjelica, Austria Wien coach 
I have 100% trust in my team and they repaid that trust with their display today. It was important for us to get a point after a difficult week. The game was fairly balanced and it was obvious that Zenit have a fantastic team. In Hulk and Danny they have players who caused us a lot of problems. We got lucky on a few occasions.

Our performance was good even before Zenit had a player sent off. It clearly got a bit easier after that. We were allowed more room in which to operate and started to create chances of our own. Unfortunately we lacked the final pass on a few occasions and didn't take advantage of our chances. Our defensive performance was solid though. In the end a 0-0 draw is a fair result.