O'Neill felt his side acquitted themselves well despite losing to Zilina
Boss Martin O'Neill brushed aside Aston Villa's 2-1 defeat by MSK Zilina and said he was satisfied with the display.
Despite the loss Villa still progressed to the Uefa Cup's last 32 after Hamburg won 2-0 away to Slavia Prague.
O'Neill said: "We are through and we deserve to go through. We changed the side significantly but we put an awful lot of pressure on Zilina.
"I thought we would get an equaliser but that did not materialise. However, our effort was absolutely fantastic."
Villa were two goals down after 20 minutes but pulled a goal back when 17-year-old striker Nathan Delfouneso struck with a sweet volley from the edge of the box.
And O'Neill was full of praise for the way Delfouneso played on his full debut.
"Nathan was terrific," he added. "I thought he played with little fear - and it is great to see a talent like that coming up. It was a great goal and I was really pleased with him.
"When Nathan got us back in the game at 2-1 I thought there was plenty of time to conjure an equaliser.
"In the end it did not matter as Hamburg won in Prague. But even if we had not gone through tonight, we would have gone to Hamburg and got the result we needed there."
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