John Stones has confessed that Manchester City were "not clinical enough in both boxes" in their last-16 second-leg tie with AS Monaco, but feels that his side still deserved to advance in the Champions League.
The Citizens headed to the south of France sitting on a 5-3 lead from a topsy-turvy opening 90 minutes at the Etihad Stadium last month, but they again failed to hold off their opponents in Wednesday's return fixture.
Goals from Kylian Mbappe and Fabinho swung the tie back in Monaco's favour, before Leroy Sane swept home to seemingly put City on the brink of another quarter-final appearance.
There was to be one more sting in the tail, though, as Tiemoue Bakayoko headed home 12 minutes from time to earn a 6-6 away-goals win for the French side, which Stones admits is tough to take.
"We were very sloppy - not up to our standard in the first half," he told BT Sport. "We wanted to correct that but we weren't clinical enough in both boxes. We didn't score enough and weren't defensively solid enough.
"The second half didn't reflect the whole scoreline. We were the City people know from this season. We should have scored more. It is a difficult one for us to take. We should have done better and deserve to be in the next round.
"The gaffer was saying before that the more and more he plays the Champions League it is about the set pieces. Real Madrid scored from two last week and went through. We weren't solid enough."
Man City become the first team in Champions League history to crash out after scoring five goals in the first leg of a knockout tie.
