Envious Manchester clubs left to focus on Europa League

By Ben James Feb 15, 2012, 9:42 GMT

London - Arsenal take on AC Milan in Italy in the Champions League on Wednesday evening and it is probably fair to say that there will be one or two envious eyes cast their way from Manchester.

While Arsenal and Chelsea, who play their last-16 clash with Napoli next week, made it through the group stages, both Premier League champions Manchester United and this season's leaders Manchester City suffered the ignominy of crashing out and falling into the Europa League instead.

Considering the money spent by both clubs in recent seasons, especially by cash-rich City, it is something of an embarrassment on their part that they will not be mixing it with the likes of Barcelona and Real Madrid.

Though City's absence can in part be explained by a little European naivety, United, champions in 1999 and 2008 under manager Sir Alex Ferguson, have no such excuses.

It is the first time in 16 seasons that they have failed to make it through to the knockout phase and Ferguson this week rued the events of their home game with FC Basel, when they conceded a 2-0 lead to draw 3-3.

'We ended up losing our concentration and though we managed to salvage a draw, it was a bad result,' Ferguson said. 'We dominated the return game, but didn't score and when that happens you don't deserve to win.

'It was a massive disappointment, because my feeling is that if we'd gone through, we would have gone on to the final,' he said.

Nevertheless, Ferguson said United will go all out to try to win the Europa League, starting with a clash with Dutch giants Ajax in Amsterdam on Thursday.

'I'm definitely treating it seriously,' Ferguson said. 'The great thing about Thursday is we don't have a game next Saturday so I can play my strongest team and will play my strongest team. It's still European football and still a good standard.'

'Ajax are not having a great time at the moment but I think, playing United, they will be well motivated for it.'

City manager Roberto Mancini also promised to give everything in search of another trophy to appease the Abu Dhabi owners, who have invested more than 200 million pounds (314 million dollars) in the club in the past few years.

The English leaders travel to Portugal for the first leg on Thursday and with no FA Cup to worry about after a third-round loss to United, Mancini said he will play a strong team.

'We want to win the Europa League because it is an important trophy,' he told the Sunday Mirror. 'We have no game next week so we can concentrate fully on a good performance.

'It will be difficult to go through because Porto are a top team but we want to do the best we can in this competition.

'We were disappointed not to do well in the Champions League, but it was a difficult group and we were unlucky to go out with 10 points,' he said in reference to a tough Champions League group in which Bayern Munich and Napoli went through.

'Now our concentration is on the Europa. It is a long time since Manchester City won a trophy in Europe. Last season we won the FA Cup after a long time and winning a European trophy would be a big step for the club.'

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