Enzo Maresca believes Manchester City deserved to get something out of a wild 4-2 Champions League loss to Paris St Germain after fighting back from 3-0 down in a chaotic second half.
In their first home game since being found guilty of breaching Premier League financial rules, and with former manager Pep Guardiola watching on, City lost for the first time since the Community Shield defeat to Arsenal in August, a run of eight games.
PSG ripped them apart in the first half, storming ahead through quickfire goals from Desire Doue and Ousmane Dembele, then all but killing it when Vitinha made it 3-0 with 32 minutes gone.
A triple change at the break helped rouse City as Erling Haaland scored twice, becoming City's record goalscorer in the Champions League in the process as he moved to 38 goals from 41 appearances, while also hitting the crossbar and seeing Enzo Fernandez denied by the post.
But in between Haaland's strikes, Maghnes Akliouche scored PSG's fourth, the ball squeezing past a despairing Gianluigi Donnarumma, and a comeback proved beyond Maresca's men even if former City man Ferran Torres missed a late penalty for the visitors.
"(It) has been a bit of a strange game, especially because we concede two goals in two minutes that create some problems for us," Maresca said. "Before the first goal we didn't concede nothing, we had some good moments then after two minutes, we concede the second one so it becomes more difficult.
"Then I think in the second half we did enough to deserve something more.
"The reason for me we struggle in first half is we concede two goals and when you are inside the pitch you know it's already difficult against them and you think 'Oh my God'.
"But second half I think we create enough chances to deserve something more. Luis (Enrique) also told me at the end they have been quite lucky in the 90 minutes, but again we lost, we can learn from that and we move on."
Maresca admitted the speed at which PSG hit his side, with only 99 seconds separating Doue's long-range strike and Dembele's header, rocked his team.
"At half-time the message was that the reason we lost the balance of the first half was because we conceded two goals," he said.
"And then the message was exactly the same message as before the game - these types of teams, if you don't go toe to toe you struggle. You have to be brave, you have to go."
City had won their first match after being hit with the guilty verdict by going to Anfield and taking apart a Liverpool side reduced to 10 men as they won 3-0, but there was a very different feeling at the Etihad when they players went in at half-time trailing by the same scoreline.
Maresca, who said he had not spoken to Guardiola before the match, denied this was a case of events catching up with his players.
"No, I don't think so," he said.
