Manchester City were held to a goalless draw by Aris Thessaloniki in the first leg of their Europa League last-32 tie in Greece, with boss Roberto Mancini blaming the pitch for a lack of goals. The Italian felt the playing surface had denied his side the chance to make their superiority pay.
He said: "I think we had control of the game but this pitch was difficult to play on, and I think if we had scored in the first half with Dzeko things may have changed. But they defended with nine or 10 men behind the ball so it was difficult."
Overall though he was pleased to see his side keep a clean sheet ahead of next week's second leg at Eastlands.
"It was better that we won this game, "he continued. "We tried but it was difficult as they defended well, but I think this is a good result.
"At Eastlands we will have a good pitch to play better football with the ball on the floor."
Shaun Wright-Phillips agreed with his manager's assessment of the playing surface.
"It was very hard, we had to watch the ball to the last minute and sometimes we missed out on some passes. But after the tough result on the weekend to come and get this is a good result."
Wright-Phillips has been tipped to leave City in the summer but dismissed such talk, saying: "It's not about my future at the minute, I'm happy playing at the moment."
Keeper Joe Hart told ITV4: "It's not a bad result and we needed to make sure we did not get beaten, and the only reason it was 0-0 was because their goalkeeper made two great saves."
Hart escaped punishment after appearing to handle the ball outside the box and said: "It looked like it, but I didn't.
""We've checked it back and obviously there was a bit of a mix-up with me and Gareth Barry, but I wouldn't have caught it if I thought it was outside the box and I knew I wasn't.
"I thought the referee got bullied a little bit but that's what happens in situations like this. The crowd tends to get on top of things, but what can you do?"
