Manchester City boss Roberto Mancini says they must learn from last night's Carling Cup defeat to Manchester United.

Mancini was emotional after the game, which saw City dumped out of the competition thanks to an injury-time effort from Wayne Rooney.

He told City's website: "I feel so sorry for the players, because they could not work any harder, but most of all I feel sorry for our fans. I wanted us to get to the final for them, and unfortunately that won't happen now."

The Manager urged that the team dust themselves down and quickly turn their thoughts to the tussle near the top of the Barclays Premier League table.

"We have to learn from this defeat and improve. It's easy to improve when you win, but losing like this can teach a team things, so we must pick ourselves up. We have to work hard over the next few months, try to improve and get into the top four by the end of the season. That's possible with these players, and we still have players to come back from injury, or Kolo to come back from Africa. I'm pleased with what the players I could choose from gave me in these two games.

"We're still in the FA Cup and we have a chance to go to Wembley in that competition, which I would love to do for the fans."