Barcelona 1 Manchester City 0: 'We lost against a better team,' says Manuel Pellegrini

Chilean boss says team 'must improve' if they want European success

Manuel Pellegrini is now under immense pressure (Getty Images)

Manchester City boss Manuel Pellegrini was pleased with his team's second-half performance but admitted they were beaten by a superior side as Barcelona sent them out of the Champions League with a 1-0 win.

"I thought we lost against a better team," he said, in a game where Joe Hart made a number of saves before Sergio Aguero missed a penalty that could've given his team a chance.

"I think that we didn't make a good first half but we improved a lot in the second half. But high risk of course because we know that we have to score two goals.

"Maybe we are always still thinking (about) what happened if we scored the penalty but we didn't."

He added: "All of us want to continue in the Champions League. I think that we need to improve in Europe, maybe in the last two years we improved because we advanced to the round of 16.

"We were very unlucky to both (times) play against Barcelona.

"To be successful in Europe we must improve.

"I also think maybe this was not our best year (chance) to continue in Europe, we have important restrictions about (the) amount of players and amount of money that we can spend so it was a difficult year for our team.

"But I think maybe if we had not played against Barcelona maybe we could continue."

PA