Roberto Mancini: "We can recover"

Roberto Mancini spoke to the press after the 1-0 first leg defeat away to Celtic.
We knew that we were facing a difficult match, plus this was our first proper game in two months and Celtic have been playing every week. I will add that Celtic are a good team and the atmosphere in the arena was incredible.

Did you prepare for Celtic playing three defenders and what was the reason for the defeat?

The reason? Celtic scored and we didn't. As for the Celtic formation, we knew that they could go for a 3-5-2 or a 4-3-3.

Zenit didn't perform today, why was that?

We made several mistakes playing out from defence to attack and through the goalkeeper. We also did not have enough drive forward and the away team needs to be tougher and play forwards.

How would you rate Zabolotny's game?

It was his first official match for us, he fought for every ball, but he did not have enough understanding with Kokorin, Rigoni and with the other players. We must correct this for the return leg. The outcome of today's match is not a problem, we can recover.

What will be different in St. Petersburg?

First of all, the weather. Although today we lost 1-0, we have 90 minutes of football ahead of us. We must improve our game in attack, we must play better in attack.