MONACO -- Aleksandar Kolarov says Manchester City must salvage something from their season after being knocked out of the Champions League in the round-of-16 on away goals.
With Chelsea 10 points clear of City at the top of the Premier League, the FA Cup would now appear to be their only chance of silverware this season with a semifinal against Arsenal next month.
But they must also secure a top-four finish to make certain of Champions League football next season and Kolarov says they must quickly recover from the Monaco defeat with rivals Liverpool coming to the Etihad on Sunday.
"We have two months until the end of the season so I hope we are going to finish in the best way possible in the Premier League and FA Cup," the defender told reporters.
"We have to work hard to improve every game and we will see where we can reach in the end.
"The aggregate score was 6-6, [Monaco] scored more goals away and they played very good. I think we are a better team than them, but in the moment we didn't play the first half like we wanted to. I'd like to congratulate them on going through.
"It's very painful in this moment for us and a difficult day but we have to look forward to the next games."
Bacary Sagna believes added that City showed Monaco too much respect in the first half as they fell 2-0 behind without creating a single opportunity of their own.
Leroy Sane put them back ahead in the tie with a 71st minute goal but Tiemoue Bakayoko's header six minutes later meant City crashed out before the quarterfinal stage for the fifth time in six years.
"We showed them too much respect," Sagna told L'Equipe. "It's particularly the way things happened that I'm disappointed with.
"Our first half was catastrophic, it's incredible. We gave them so much space."
Gael Clichy agreed that City were poor in the first half but believes that Monaco's exciting young forwards Kylian Mbappe, Bernardo Silva and Thomas Lemar deserve credit for the way they unsettled Pep Guardiola's side.
"Our first half was disappointing but you have to give Monaco credit, they were good in the first half," the France defender told L'Equipe.
"The coach believes in his philosophy. He wasn't all that annoyed but he doesn't want to see his team play as we did in the first half. He wants us to go forward, press high, have the ball and we did exactly the opposite."
