Energy key to Gent revival

• Hein Vanhaezebrouck says Gent "played with lots of energy" in draw with Lyon
• Belgian champions earn debut point despite playing second half with ten men
• Hubert Fournier points to "stupid" goal conceded by visitors

Hein Vanhaezebrouck, Gent coach
I am satisfied that we still got a point from this match. It might have been three, but many circumstances were against us. We have to be more clever in certain situations. But I can hardly blame my players for anything, looking at the match we played.

We played with lots of energy and, honestly speaking, I did not feel we had ten men until five minutes from the end. We will now play two away matches, which will be a different situation. But we said we will go for it in all six games, so let's see what happens. If we had a little bit more luck today, then three points would have been possible, for sure.

We started the game like we wanted. I am proud of my players, of how they played from the first minute. It is a pity we did not manage to score at the beginning of the game. In the second half it was not easy because we are in the Champions League with one man less. Then you need courage and we got over that rapidly and continued to press – we did not drop back because if you do that, you do not get the ball any more. Even with ten men, we pushed them back.

Milicevic after Gent's first Champions League goal©Getty Images

Hubert Fournier, Lyon coach
It is a disappointment to finish with a missed penalty. We were knocked out of our stride by Gent's passion, they began with a lot of desire. When they went down to ten men, our numerical superiority should have enabled us to win the game. We should at least have kept it at 1-0. But we let in a goal which I consider stupid and the penalty miss meant fate played a dirty trick on us.

In the first 30 minutes Gent were better than us. They did not score and I switched to 4-3-3 so the last 15 minutes of the first half were a little bit better. Then we started the second half well and scored. We should have been able to keep this advantage but we lacked maturity and Gent equalised. Their goal was avoidable. We had a chance to score with the penalty and we will see the consequences of the two points lost tonight.

We are a bit disappointed. It is a pity, because Valencia lost at home and if we had won, next time against Valencia would have been an open door for qualification. But with this result today the pressure will be greater against Valencia. We have dropped two points and it is a setback for us.