Jose Mourinho said he was satisfied with Man United's performance on a difficult playing surface as his side earned a 1-1 draw at FC Rostov in the Europa League on Thursday.
Both Mourinho and Rostov manager Ivan Daniliants had said before the game that the half-frozen pitch would present challenges, but the Man United boss was not overly critical in his postgame comments.
"It was a very good performance in relation to the conditions. It was impossible to play better, impossible to play a passing game," Mourinho said on BT Sport. "We played what the game demanded and we played well. We made one defensive mistake.
"We have an open result for the second leg with a little advantage for us. There are no injuries."
After Henrikh Mkhitaryan provided United's opener, Aleksandr Bukharov found an equaliser for the hosts after chesting down a long ball, and Mourinho said he thought his players had been in a good position to hold onto their lead.
"I did not see us conceding but we did," he said. "They are very direct and do not use the wingers. Our three central defenders had a very positive game. The midfield fought for the second goal and tried to give something in attack."
Though United were not able to secure a win, Mkhitaryan's away goal will give them a slight edge ahead of the second leg at Old Trafford, and Mourinho said in his news conference: "We go home with a positive result."
"We know that it will be a difficult match, we know that we need to win or to have a 0-0 draw, so the game is open," he said. "The tie is open, but in these circumstances I think it was a positive result. An away goal is always positive. It is better 1-1 that 0-0, obviously.
"But the game is open, the result is open and this Rostov team have experience of playing big matches, big opponents, big stadiums.
"I don't think it is a problem for them to go to Old Trafford and to compete against us. They play Sunday against Terek Grozny, we play Monday against Chelsea. Who knows, we could have extra-time and 30 minutes more to play, so for us it is difficult.
"But we are one step from being in the quarter-finals, the players have that motivation. The fans for sure at Old Trafford will push with us. Hopefully in one week's time, we go to the quarterfinal."
United goal scorer Mkhitaryan admitted the pitch was a challenge and limited both teams' ability to perform.
"We have tried to win, we have played as good as we could on this pitch," he said on BT Sport.
"I do not want to speak about the pitch because it was awful for both. For those watching, it was not a very interesting game."
Mkhitaryan was also disappointed that United conceded after taking the lead, saying: "It does not matter if you are leading 1-0, you have to be ready for everything.
"We conceded the goal and there was a mistake but we have a second game to come."
Daniliants struck a philosophical figure on a night when Vladimir Granat fractured his collar-bone and Timofei Kalachev and Aleksandr Gatskan collected bookings that will see them miss the second leg.
"We were a different side in each half," Daniliants said. "We did not play like the home team in the first one but then regrouped and started to look more like ourselves.
"We got more lively, took the game to them and scored. On the one hand, they are Manchester United and we can be happy with a 1-1 draw, but we are also disappointed that we only really played for 45 minutes and not the whole 90."
