The 4-0 win over the desert kingdom on Monday means Ukraine are now firmly back in the running to qualify for the last 16 from Group H, with their third pool game against Tunisia on Friday.

"I would like to thank my team who bounced back from the bad defeat to Spain," Blokhin said, praising the way his team had nullified any Saudi midfield threat.

"The players today carried out the coaches' advice, which was not to give the Saudi players any space or any ball," the former Dynamo Kiev and Soviet Union star said.

"Saudi Arabia found our dead ball situations difficult and also the short passing game in midfield.

"The objective was to prevent the Saudis getting any ball in the midfield, and our team was able to counter-attack very quickly."

Ukraine scored a brace of goals either side of the interval from Andriy Rusol, Serhiy Rebrov, Andriy Shevchenko and the impressive man-of-the-match Maksym Kalinichenko, three of which came from set-piece plays.

Blokhin, however, was typically reserved when talking about his team's chances of qualifying for the knock-out phase.

He said that the win over Saudi Arabia, combined with the morale-draining loss to Spain, would take some time to recover from.

"We used up a lot of psychological energy after Spain," he said. "The team must regain its strength and it might be more difficult because we won.

"Our objective today was to win and our objective for the next game is to win and go into the last 16."

Saudi Arabia coach Marcos Paqueta praised the Ukraine team as skilful "both individually and collectivelly".

"They scored three goals from set-pieces and we will have to improve on that" before a daunting game against Spain on Friday, he said of his team which drew 2-2 against Tunisia in their opener.

"We knew we had two difficult games against Ukraine and Spain, but in life you have to have hope in everything and be positive right to the end.

"The most important thing is that the players showed they were committed and eliminated the image of its last World Cup participation.

"We suffered the same fate Ukraine did against Spain, two goals in the first-half and another right at the start of the second-half that created havoc.

"But the team did not give up and fought until the end," the Brazilian said. "I'm at ease and have peace of mind because we did our utmost."