Manchester City crashed out of the Champions League on Wednesday night, despite beating Bayern Munich 2-0 at the Etihad Stadium.
Roberto Mancini’s men were reliant on a favour from Group A whipping boys Villarreal, but Napoli overcame the Spaniards at El Madrigal to send the English team to the Europa League.
Against a largely second-string Bayern outfit, City dominated proceedings from early in the fixture, and went about their business with the intention of winning the game.
David Silva opened the scoring for the current Premier League leaders in the first half, shooting into the bottom right hand corner of Hans Jorg Butt’s goal from outside the penalty box, and giving the hosts a one goal advantage at the interval.
Yaya Toure doubled the home team’s lead soon after the break, firing past the oncoming Butt to end the match as a contest.
However, in Spain, goals from Gokhan Inler and Martin Hamsik in the second half ensured that the Serie A side picked up the three points in a 2-0 win and secured second place in the group.
Mancini apologised to the club’s supporters for the failure to make the last 16, and has targeted glory in the Europa League.
“We go into the Europa league. It’s another trophy and it’s an important trophy for Manchester City,
” the Italian told Sky Sports.
“It’s a disappointment because we wanted to play in the Champions League.
10 points is very difficult to go out.
“If you are in the final [of the Europa League] it will be very important because I’ve never won the Europa League.
“We are a good team. We played well, we’re very sorry for our supporters and I’m sorry for our players.
“I think we need to improve as a team because we got a tough group this year. Congratulations to Napoli, they got one point more than us.
“Now we are the top of the Premier League and the season will be long, but we want to improve on last year in the Premier League,” he concluded.
City are in action again on Monday night, and face a tricky away day at Stamford Bridge as they travel to take on Chelsea.
By Gareth McKnight
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