Thomas Tuchel has refused to blame Borussia Dortmund captain Mats Hummels after the centre-back conceded a penalty in the first minute of their 1-0 Europa League loss to Krasnodar on Thursday.
Hummels, 26, has endured a rough week. Having been on the receiving end of criticism from the media after scoring an own goal against Hamburg last weekend, the German international then had to combat rumours of a rift between himself and Tuchel.
The Dortmund boss, however, could not fault Hummels for his display on Thursday.
"Mats showed good presence and won the ball a number of times," Tuchel said after the match.
"If there was a slump in his performance today, it lasted for 35 seconds.
"From watching him I thought he was very focused and put in a very good performance overall, responding almost perfectly to criticism which has no base in reality."
Despite dominating proceedings, Tuchel's men ceded top spot in Group C to their Russian opponents with the defeat. The BVB manager insisted that Dortmund deserved better.
"It was a serious performance. We put in a very, very good performance from the second to the 94th minute, worked hard at counter-pressing and winning the ball back," Tuchel said.
"We succeeded in completely dominating Krasnodar, found a lot of solutions and created a lot of shots on goal. We would have completely deserved it if we had won this match. We dominated it in a manner which I had not envisaged at all.
"The result is paradoxical. I know that you need that little bit of luck in order to win games. But today you saw that it is possible to win a game with luck alone. We have to accept that."