Joe Hart admitted Manchester City were to blame for letting the game slip against Real Madrid in their opening Champions League encounter, while Roberto Mancini bemoaned his side's poor defending after the English Premier League champions leaked in two goals in the final moments.
Cristiano Ronaldo struck the winner in the 90th minute, after Karim Benzema had levelled the scores with three minutes to go. Manchester City, saw their lead twice take away in a thrilling 3-2 win for Real at the Bernabeu.
"You can't go 2-1 up with five minutes to go and lose the game," Hart told ITV1. "Who else can we blame? We can only blame ourselves."
Aleksandar Kolarov had given City the lead with five minutes remaining, after Marcelo had cancelled Edin Dzeko's opener. "They're a very good team, so are we," Hart added. "We dug deep, got a lead twice and we lost it, so we can only blame ourselves.
"It's hard to come off the field after losing 3-2 and be positive. I'm really sorry. We're not a team that should come here and pat ourselves on the back for doing well.
"We're a team that gets results."
Mancini was, obviously, disappointed to leave Madrid with no points. "We didn't defend as we can on the edge of the box and made some mistakes -- we cannot continue to defend this way and we need to resolve this problem quickly," the Italian manager said.
"We played too deep and this invited problems. Madrid were better than us in the first half but we improved a lot after the break. We are disappointed because we were 2-1 up with five minutes to go and if you find yourself in this situation away to Real Madrid, you should pay more attention and go on and win.
"Teams can lose here, that is not a surprise but we have lost from a good position -- that is the disappointment, but I was happy with our performance in the second half."
Mancini refused blame Manchester City's relative inexperience in the Champions League as a factor in the defeat. "We can't continue to talk about experience because we have good players who are used to playing in big games like this," he said.
"Other teams will lose here, too, but now we have five games left and it is important that we beat Borussia Dortmund in our next game. That won't be easy because they are another top team.
"It will be difficult and we know ever match will be hard, but we should go through to the group stages this year."
Jose Mourinho was happy to see his team fight back and play more like the side he is used to managing. "I'm proud of my team whatever the result was," the Portuguese said. "I felt that things were not going in the right direction.
"Real Madrid can lose matches like tonight, fighting like animals, but not playing like in Getafe and Seville. It was important to get that feeling that when they want to, they can.
"The team was solid, compact, recovered balls and were committed as a team to play aggressively. We dominated and we won. City did not get a shot on goal in the first 45 minutes.
"It is difficult to play better than we played today. There was a tremendous commitment from the team and everyone is happy. Not only to rediscover last year's DNA but also to win a big match. We have three points and we have taken an important step towards qualifying from a tough group."
