"There was a lot of sympathy for Jihai Sun but as he himself said there was nothing he could do about it," said the City wide man. "The ball just came across and hit him in the leg.
"He is very disappointed about it, but we have all told him to keep his head up. We are all very disappointed in the dressing room, but the one thing on which we are all agreed is that we worked very hard and that we should have got something out of the game.
"We had put the defeat in Poland to the back of our minds and focused on what we had to do against Middlesbrough. We are depressed about losing the points on Sunday, the Uefa Cup is gone and now we have to build back up for the Premiership."
Like his manager, SWP also praised the response of the City faithful after the disappointing Euro exit.
"The fans were great we know they were disappointed in midweek and that they wanted to show us," he added. "But as players we knew that they would not carry their disappointment from midweek over to the game against Middlesbrough."