Roberto Mancini has tried to put a positive spin on Manchester City's European failure this season.
The English champions bowed out of the Champions League without a win in Group D and saw their Europa League hopes extinguished after Tuesday night's 1-0 loss to Borussia Dortmund.
Although Mancini was disappointed with the outcome, he feels that having no European football to worry about will enhance their chances of defending the Premier League title they clinched last term.
"I don't think we lost our qualification tonight. We lost before tonight," said Mancini.
"We had the chance to score but if in these moments you don't score it's difficult to win.
"We are not in the Europa League, and for this we should be disappointed.
"I think last season we did better but this year we had a very difficult group. If you make a mistake in the first two to three games it is difficult to recover.
"Clearly this can help us in the Premier League because we won't be playing in the Europa League but we wanted to. That was our target tonight."
