Sergio Aguero thought he had done enough to secure City a priceless first win in this season’s competition when he converted from a Kolarov cross late on but the Serbian was harshly adjudged to be offside.
“The referee and his staff were really poor tonight, I think that we scored three goals and we conceded two stupid goals,” he said.
“I told the referee that it was a goal - I didn’t see the last situation with Mario for the penalty decision but the players told me that it should have been.
“In an important game like this you can’t concede goals from corners but afterwards we started to play fantastically well and should have won.”
...Roberto Mancini...
Despite the disappointing result, two wins could still be enough to keep City’s dream of qualifying for the last 16 but the manager wasn’t interested in talking fairy tales.
“It’s finished,” was his diagnosis, “I always believe in my team but now I think it is very difficult.
“If we win two games, get eight points and go through, we can win the Champions League, it’s simple – if our destiny is this then we should win the Champions League.
“We had a chance to win in the Bernabeu but we made some mistakes, against Ajax away it was the same, we didn’t play well but we took the lead and had two chances to score the second goal but we didn’t take the chances.
“It was the same thing tonight, but it’s finished.”
Mancini’s Ajax counterpart Frank De Boer admitted that he would have taken a draw before the game but was disappointed to only leave Manchester with a point.
“Before the game if you could sign for 2-2, you would take it,” he said.
“We could have scored one or two more, we made the wrong choices but in the end, it could have fallen the other way – it’s good to see that our players are disappointed with that result.
...Frank de Boer...
“We gave the goal away very cheaply and out of nothing they score the second goal so we’re very disappointed.”
