Inability to capitalise following sending off

minute before half-time and that is a fundamental flaw and error that shouldn’t happen at this level.

“We started the second half a little bit better; we started to have a little bit of success and the sending off was a pivotal moment.

“After the sending off we lost composure and possession, we started lumping crosses in from deep rather than actually playing through.

“Once again we gave a really, really poor goal away and the basics really cost us today in terms of keeping people outside, not letting them inside and you have to be able to do that at this level, if you can’t do that at this level then you get punished.”

Murty criticised his players’ mental application after letting such a big opportunity to slip.

“Before I actually analyse all the things we need to do I am immensely frustrated for the supporters and the players because we put ourselves in a right good situation and we have come away with nothing,” he said.

“It is a lack of concentration, a lack of switching on at the right times and you don’t get opportunities like that to catch up against players of this calibre. If you give them an opportunity they go and score and it is exactly what we talked about in the brief and all week.”

“We were happy to come out and lump hopeful balls in the box and they have three guys who are 6’3.

“I am screaming from the sidelines that we need to play and we didn’t quite have that quality or composure in the final third that we have shown in the previous games, which is a disappointment.

“We pick ourselves up by going on another run and by making sure we finish the season off strong.” MANCHESTER City are in the unfamiliar position of needing to shrug off a defeat as they look to resume their title charge at Stoke.

The Premier League leaders, who will be minus the injured Sergio Aguero tonight, were beaten for only the fourth time in 46 matches in the second leg of their Champions League last16 tie against Basel on Wednesday — and Ukrainian youngster Oleksandr Zinchenko says lessons need to be learned.

The 21-year-old said: “We did a lot of simple mistakes, especially passes. At 4-0 (from the first leg) it was not the best game for us, but we didn’t have to play like that. The most important thing was we got through, but that was the only positive from the night.

“But now we have to look forward because we have a lot of games this season, especially in the Premier League and we can win two (more) titles. Now we focus on Stoke.”