Paris Saint-Germain captain Thiago Silva believes his side underperformed in their Coupe de France semifinal against Lorient because they were still thinking about their Champions League elimination.
PSG were beaten 3-2 on aggregate by Manchester City in the Champions League quarterfinals last week but they recovered to hammer Caen 6-0 in a league game last weekend.
The cup holders then managed to get past a spirited Lorient side on Tuesday after a superb 75th-minute strike from Zlatan Ibrahimovic proved the only goal of the game.
Laurent Blanc's team were indebted to goalkeeper Salvatore Sirigu, who saved from Benjamin Moukandjo before Ibrahimovic broke the deadlock, and Silva, 31, admitted that it was a tough night.
"I'm happy with the result but not with the way we played," the Brazilian defender told Le Parisien.
"It's very difficult to play here on this artificial pitch... but we did what we had to do to qualify. We can think about Lille and the Coupe de la Ligue final on Saturday."
�� VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS: Lorient 0, PSG 1 https://t.co/0b3orLRZ5p pic.twitter.com/GkeOW6QMbo
- PSG English (@PSG_English) April 20, 2016
When pressed on the issue, Silva conceded that last week's 1-0 defeat in Manchester was still troubling the players.
"We know that we have to keep winning even if we're all still thinking on what happened in the Champions League," he said. "We didn't play well this evening also because we have the situation in Manchester on our minds.
"Now we need to clear our minds, to start playing well again and to finish the season well."
Blanc felt Tuesday's win could start the healing process, while Sirigu also said it was hard to forget about how PSG's hopes of becoming European champions evaporated at City.
"We can't hide -- the elimination against City is still in our heads," the Italian told L'Equipe. "It could have been the decisive year. We played good matches, we thought we would get there but it didn't happen.
"Frankly, it's a shame but it's the Champions League. We have to come to terms with it."