Thursday 25 October 2012 15:10, UK
Roberto Mancini admits that Manchester City require a "miracle" if they are to prolong their UEFA Champions League adventure.
He added: "When you prepare for a game sometimes it is a 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. "They played better than us, they played better football. Mancini asked his team to change from a back four to switching between three and five in defence, and Micah Richards admitted it is formation he is struggling to get to grips with. "It's not something that we've worked on a lot, we're just used to a back four," he told Sky Sports. "But the manager likes it and if we want to do well with it then we'll have to work harder on it. "It's a hard system and I think the players prefer a 4-4-2 but he's the manager and we'll do what he says." Richards also recognises that it would now be difficult to get through to the last 16 after losing a match they had desperately wanted to win. "When we got drawn in this group we knew it was going to be a tough one," he said. "We're disappointed today, we thought we would come here and get the three points but it wasn't to be. "No disrespect to Ajax but we expected to come here and win, we'll look to the next game and see what we can do."| Ajax | Team Statistics | Manchester City |
| 3 | Goals | 1 |
| 1 | 1st Half Goals | 1 |
| 6 | Shots on Target | 5 |
| 7 | Shots off Target | 6 |
| 2 | Blocked Shots | 5 |
| 3 | Corners | 6 |
| 7 | Fouls | 9 |
| 0 | Offsides | 5 |
| 1 | Yellow Cards | 2 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 86.7 | Passing Success | 85.2 |
| 11 | Tackles | 16 |
| 81.8 | Tackles Success | 62.5 |
| 51.8 | Possession | 48.2 |
| 49.5 | Territorial Advantage | 50.5 |
| 588 | Total Passes | 532 |
| 15 | Total Crosses | 27 |
| 137 | Lost Balls | 137 |
| 43 | Recoveries | 61 |
| 63.5 | 1st Half Poss. | 36.5 |
| 38.4 | 2nd Half Poss. | 61.6 |
