Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini was disappointed with his team's defending, but refused to single out any one person in the 3-2 defeat to newly-promoted Cardiff City.

A brace from Fraizer Campbell and one from Aron Gunnarsson was enough for Cardiff to pick up their first victory in the English Premier League in front of a massive home crowd.

Edin Dzeko opened the scoring for City, before Cardiff led 3-1, with Alvaro Negredo getting the final consolation goal in stoppage time.

Pellegrini believes his side did not defend well as a team, especially at set-pieces where Cardiff scored two of their goals.

"We played against a very difficult team, they had ten players near their own box in the first half and it was difficult for us to try to score," he added.

"After we scored, we were better but two set pieces decided the match.

"I haven't seen the goal yet but defending set pieces is the job of the whole team. It doesn't matter who is guilty but to concede two goals from corners is too many.

"When we scored the first goal it could have been easy for us but it was very difficult.

"We didn't do a very good match but we didn't do bad. We were patient for the goal, we got it but then we were undone by two corners.

"Football is like that, we must concentrate in those situations and I think that although Cardiff won the match, we played better."

Pellegrini was forced to play Javi Garcia at center-back after Vincent Kompany suffered an injury, with Campbell, in particular, giving both Garcia and Joleon Lescott the runaround throughout the 90 minutes.

"I don't think center-halves were a problem at all," Pellegrini said. "Cardiff are a very difficult team to play, they tried to play counterattack and our defenders dealt with that. It was just two corners.

"We knew before we came here that Cardiff are a very good side, they didn't lose many games here last season. We came here to try and win but we didn't.

"Maybe we played a little slowly in the first 45 minutes because they were defending so deep and we had to be very accurate with our passes. Every match is different -- I don't think we played very, very bad today (Sunday) to lose the match.

"There is no difference between the Premier League and La Liga in this -- corners are the same in Europe and the rest of the world.

"We scored two goals and we had one or two other chances but the game was decided on two corners."