Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini could offer no excuses for the club's 3-1 home defeat to Leicester at the Etihad Stadium.
Robert Huth scored twice and Riyad Mahrez also got on the scoresheet as City slipped six points behind their rivals for the title in a stunning game.
The Chilean, who will be replaced by Pep Guardiola next summer, praised Leicester for their efforts but was disappointed with his side's defending.
"I don't think it's fair to make excuses," he said. "A lot of things went wrong. We played against a very good team.
"It's fair to give them the merit they have, they're playing well in a good moment. After that, we defended very bad. Especially to concede goals from set pieces. On top of that, with a lot of possession, we didn't create enough.
"I think we didn't defend well because they had other chances. I don't complain about one action of the game. I just complain about the way we played today.
"We had a chance to recover points at home, now we're six points behind Leicester. Now we have 39 points more to play for. We must focus game by game and try to beat Spurs here. We see what happens between Arsenal and Leicester. So many things can happen.
"Of course though, this was a defeat we didn't expect.
"If Leicester continue playing the way they are of course [they are favourites]. There are 13 games more so it's difficult to make a prediction on the future."
Pellegrini also refused to blame the impact of the Guardiola announcement for the defeat.
"I think I talked too much about last week," he said. "I don't think it is fair to try to have excuses for other things."
David Silva limped off with a recurrence of his ankle injury and Pellegrini admitted that the midfielder faces a race to be fit for Sunday's game against Spurs.
"He had a twist in the same ankle," the coach added. "I think it will be difficult for him to recover soon. We will see before the weekend.
"In football, things change from one week to another. We're not in our best moment -- we have just 14 players fit and we're playing a lot of games. We need to recover as soon as we can from this defeat."