Stoke City boss Tony Pulis feels they can be proud of their Europa League run - which ended last night at Valencia.
Defeat at home last week left the Potters with a mountain to climb and they might have managed it had Kenwyne Jones taken one of two glorious opportunities, but he fluffed his lines and Jonas' 24th-minute goal earned Los Che a 1-0 win on the night and 2-0 on aggregate.
"To play the number of games we have in Europe, to go all over Europe - and sometimes, in my mind, just outside Europe, and I've been caned for that - but tonight we had a right go.
"In the first 20 minutes, if we'd just have had a bit of luck, we needed a goal and it just didn't come.
"Even at our place, if Jon (Walters) had scored early on it's a different game. When you're playing the top teams the big moments obviously always happen in the box and our big moments we haven't profited from, and that's what you need to do.
"But the players have been absolutely brilliant, and even at the end Kenwyne missed a header that normally he'd score from. We needed to take our chances, we didn't do that, but the rest of the game we were absolutely fantastic."Pulis said of the run: "It's been fantastic, we've really enjoyed it. It's given everybody at the club a lift. It's something we've never experienced before.
