De Boer delighted with 'dominant' Ajax

Frank De Boer, Ajax coach
I know what we are capable of. Today we have seen a fairly good Ajax team and we played good football in certain phases. We played against a top team. When you are champions of England, you are a top team. Today we showed what we want to do. It is to our credit that we beat a top English side. We played dominant football and they did not have an answer.

I always get a bit tired of people saying it was because of the opponent [playing badly]. Our players were dominating, and City had no answer to that. When we went behind, it was because we did not pay enough attention, and we got punished for that. After the goal we recovered very well and equalised right before the break. Now we have to fight to stay in Europe; either in the Champions League or Europa League.

Roberto Mancini, Manchester City manager
I think they played better football than us. Probably it is my fault, I prepared badly for this game, and I did not prepare the players. I take the blame for this defeat. We did not underestimate them, but we prepared differently from normal and we prepared the wrong way. It is my fault and I accept this.

We changed formation for five minutes, when we wanted a player in the hole, but on the pitch we still had 11 players. We conceded the two goals before we switched formation so that is not important. If others want to make that excuse, that is not important.

It is very difficult to qualify now. There is one team with seven points and one with six and one with three. It would be a miracle. It will not be difficult to [pick players up mentally]. When you play football you know you can play a bad game like tonight, but the season is long and you play a lot of games.