Brighton & Hove Albion defender Gaetan Bong praised his team-mates for keeping their defensive discipline, despite a 2-0 defeat to Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium.
Albion more than held their own against their star-studded opponents and Bong felt his team-mates reacted well to conceding the first goal to stay in the game.
He said, “I thought we played well at times, and we know it’s hard to come here and to have the ball. We started well, we were in the game and caused them a few problems, but they have quality players.
“We lost the ball on the counter-attack for the first goal and we had to stay focused to stay in the game.
“It was always going to be tough, but we kept our shape and tried to stay compact on the counter-attack. It’s never going to be easy to get anything here, and we have to learn from this loss.”
The Cameroonian spoke about Albion’s plan to catch City out on the counter-attack, and felt the team achieved a respectable result given the reigning champions’ impressive home form.
“We know we’re good on the counter-attack, and we wanted to stay in the game and slowly open up.
“We did that, and although we didn’t get the result we wanted, some teams have come and lost by more and we just have to focus on the next game now.
“This is a tough place to go for all Premier League teams, even the top ones. We knew it would be hard to take points here, but we’re here to play our football and to learn from our defeats. We have to keep going.”