Marcelino believes Valencia can build on their goalless draw with Manchester United and expressed frustration that his side could not find a winning goal at Old Trafford.
Valencia more than held their own against a United side looking – unsuccessfully – to bounce back from a humiliating 3-1 defeat to West Ham at the weekend.
The LaLiga side were able to expose United on the counter-attack on numerous occasions over the course of the match, most notably when Goncalo Guedes fired straight at David de Gea from a promising position in the first half.
Despite missing out on the three points, Marcelino saw plenty to be happy about in his team’s performance.
“I think we put in a solid team performance over the 90 minutes,” he said. “On occasion we created certain danger, we just lacked that final ball and that clarity in front of goal.
“But certainly I’d like to say that I’m very proud of the work ethic of my players from one to 11.
“We were very competitive throughout. We were up against a very powerful Manchester United side, so for us it was a good result.”
Asked for his analysis of Group H after a defeat to Juventus and Tuesday’s draw with United, Marcelino added: “[I’m] a lot more positive than after the first match against Juve.
“In that first game against Juve we weren’t able to pick up any points, all we did was to learn some lessons.
“There were five games to go after that, now we have four left. Tonight we applied what we learned from that game against Juventus. We learned how to put on a better show and to compete in this wonderful competition, give little away.
“But there is still a long way to go in this competition. We will take it game by game. What we’ve shown tonight is that we have real fighting spirit and we’ve added that fighting spirit to our quality.
“We’ll enjoy this moment and see what we’re capable of in the next match. We know we can improve on this.
“We could have won, but they created danger in the second half as well. Maybe I’m biased but I think maybe the away side perhaps just deserved to win, but the home side could have done so as well.”
The result piled more pressure on opposite number Jose Mourinho, but Marcelino defended the Portuguese.
“He is a great manager for me,” he commented. “I’ve always followed his career, paid attention to him, and I think there are things I can learn from him.”
