By Chris Bevan
Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini feels his job is safe despite seeing his side fail to reach the last 16 of the Champions League for a second successive season.
City’s 1-1 draw with Real Madrid means they are out as Real and Borussia Dortmund qualified from Group D.
Asked if failure could cost him his job, Mancini said: “I don’t fear this.
“If we think, as a team and a club, we can win the Champions League after two years in it, then we are crazy.”
Mancini’s expensively-assembled side won last season’s Premier League title and are currently top of the domestic table.
But the Italian said he does not feel City are ready to challenge the best teams in Europe, and reckons that will take time.
“Look at Chelsea,” Mancini added when asked how long it could take City to be genuine contenders. “They tried to win it for 10 years and when they were at their best they probably deserved to win it, but they didn’t. Then they won last year when nobody thought they would win it.
“The Champions League is strange and difficult, we need to have a big passion for it and we need to improve our team and understand that we cannot start the group with mistakes. We need to win our first two games.”
Chelsea have already parted company with Roberto Di Matteo, the manager who finally brought them European football’s top prize in May, after his side’s unconvincing form all but ended their hopes of defending their title.
Real boss Jose Mourinho, who like Di Matteo knows what it is like to be sacked by Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich despite being a successful manager, believes City will back Mancini but does not think he would get the same treatment under similar circumstances.
“It is incredible when you look at the array of players City have got that they have been eliminated from the group stage two years running,” Mourinho said.
“But I believe Roberto can work without any problems. If it was Real, I don’t believe the press would let me return to Madrid.”
Mourinho laughed as he made that last comment at the end of his media conference at the Etihad Stadium, but Mancini has little to smile about when it comes to his side’s prospects in Europe.
City can still finish third, if they beat Dortmund in Germany in their final game and Ajax fail to beat Real, but a Europa League place is again the best his side will manage and they will be onlookers when the knockout stages of the Champions League are played in the new year.
“If we could get to the second stage in February, then everything can change because you can improve over five or six months and maybe you can say you are here to win the Champions League,” Mancini explained.
“But if you say, as a team or a club, can we win it, I don’t think this, because I think there are five or six teams better than us.
“We wanted to go through this time but this group was really difficult. The Champions League does not ever give you a chance to recover if you miss some chances like we did in our first two or three games.
“In the Premier League, the season is long. Also, if you lose two or three games then you have time to recover. In the Champions League, you don’t.”
Last season, City went out in the group stage despite picking up 10 points from their six games. This campaign has seen them collect only three from five so far, and they have failed to win a single match in Europe.
“This is worse,” Mancini said. “We have made some mistakes and the group is very difficult. We started the group with defeat in Madrid when we were 2-1 up with only a few minutes to go and everything was made complicated by that result.
“I think Real and Dortmund deserve to go through because they played better than us.”
