My poor preparations led to us losing to Ajax, claims Mancini

City are now on the verge of being eliminated from Group D after slumping to defeat at the Amsterdam Arena – goals from Siem de Jong, Niklas Moisander and Christian Eriksen making Samir Nasri’s opener obsolete.

Mancini said: “They played better than us, they played better football.

“It was probably my fault because I prepared badly for this game, I didn’t prepare the players and I’m at fault for the defeat.

“When you prepare for a game sometimes it is different to what you expect.

“We played a bad game. We had a few chances to score but the players didn’t really play well.”

City have only one point from three games, and Mancini believes qualification will now be a bridge too far given the poor return on performances against Ajax, Borussia Dortmund and Real Madrid.

“It’s very difficult. There’s one team with seven points, one team with six and one with three,” he added.

“It will be a miracle.”

Arsenal were beaten 2-0 at home by Schalke in Group B, the Gunners’ first home loss in the tournament since 2009 and, although they are still expected to progress from the group stages, it was not the performance they needed after a dismal defeat at Norwich on Saturday.

They were toothless at Carrow Road and a response was expected last night but it never arrived.

“We are really disappointed,” said their captain Thomas Vermaelen.

“We lost on Saturday and wanted to be better but it was the same story. We didn’t create enough chances to score goals. They got one and then got more.”

Asked why Arsenal were unable to right the wrongs of the weekend, the Belgium international added: “It’s difficult to explain, we wanted to put it right.

“We gave 100 per cent but it’s difficult at the moment because we’re not creating enough chances to score goals.”

Klaas Jan Huntelaar and Ibrahim Afellay showed them how it should be done.